Sanaa Seif | You Have Not Yet Been Defeated

This roundtable conversation "You Have Not Yet Been Defeated with Sanaa Seif and Nicola Pratt" will address Alaa Abd El-Fattah's book of essays You Have Not Yet Been Defeated, his essayistic and political activism more generally and Sanaa’s campaign for Alaa's release. Both Alaa and Sanaa are prominent British-Egyptian activist involved in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Alaa has been imprisoned since the revolution, and Sanaa has been promoting his book of essays and actively campaigning for his release.

The roundtable conversation will feature readings from El-Fattah’s essays, and discuss his key ideas and the campaign for his release. Thematically, the roundtable will focus on El-Fattah’s metaphor of monstrosity, which outlines how activists can reanimate their political commitment in the wake of defeat and draw resilience and hope from past losses and wounds.

It is our hope the roundtable will promote Alaa’s book and ideas, raise awareness about the significance of Sanaa’s and Alaa's activism, and help support the campaign for his release.

This roundtable is co-hosted with the Centre for Contemporary Political Theory.

Sanaa Seif is Alaa’s sister, herself a prominent activist, writer and filmmaker involved in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. She was an editor and shooter on the film The Square, which details the events of the Egyptian revolution from 2011 to 2013 and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary feature. Since her involvement in the Revolution, Seif has been very active in several protest movements and human rights campaigns, including the campaign for Alaa’s release. She was also arrested and imprisoned twice for her activism. Many see her as a symbol of resistance and the revolutionary spirit.

Nicola Pratt is a Professor of International Politics of the Middle East. She has written extensively on women's activism, democratization, human rights and conflict in a number of Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt. Between 2016 and 2020, she led a research project on "Politics and Popular Culture in Egypt: Contested Narratives of the 25 January 2011 Uprising and its Aftermath", resulting in the curation of a digital archive of the 2011 Revolution.