It is with immense sadness that we announce the passing of our dear friend and colleague Dr Amal Treacher Kabesh, who has died in Cairo just four months after retiring.
Amal joined the School of Sociology and Social Policy in April 2005, initially as part of the social work teaching team and later transferring to sociology. Throughout her 17 years in the school, Amal was loved and respected as a colleague who was known for her scholarship, her kindness and support to students and early career academics, her commitment to equality and diversity, her humour and joyful swearing, her sumptuous cooking, her generosity of spirit, and her unswerving ability to ask the questions which mattered. In 2021 she was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Medal in recognition of her contribution to equality, diversity and inclusion within the University of Nottingham, particularly her work on decolonising the curriculum.
As a scholar Amal made major contributions in several interrelated fields, including feminist thinking (as a longstanding member of the Feminist Review editorial collective) postcolonial scholarship (including her books Postcolonial Masculinities: Emotions, Histories and Ethics, 2013 and Egyptian Revolutions: Conflict, Repetition and Identification, 2017 ) and psychosocial theory (including her edited works Traces of Violence and Freedom of Thought, 2017 and Twelve Essays on Winnicott: Theoretical Developments and Clinical Innovations, 2019). Amal also published innumerable journal articles and spoke at countless seminars and conferences.
It is testament to both Amal’s scholarship and her humanity that her loss is being mourned not only by her family and friends but by diverse communities of scholars across the globe.
Other tributes to Amal can be found at:
Posted on Friday 14th January 2022