Thanks for stopping by!
I serve as Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Before I was recruited to SFU in 2007, I was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Most of my work is focused on the intersection of law, religion, and governance. I like to dig deep into the empirics of specific case studies (Egypt and Malaysia thus far) with an eye for counter-intuitive twists and insights. My early research in Cairo, dating to the 1990s, focused on the ways that law and courts serve as instruments of state control, but also as important sites of resistance. More recently, I examined the “judicialization of religion” in Malaysia with attention to the radiating effects of law on legal and religious consciousness.
I earned my PhD is in Political Science from the University of Washington, Seattle. My undergraduate degree is from the University of California, San Diego. These years were punctuated by long stretches of study and fieldwork in Cairo, Egypt (1992-93; 1994-95; 1997-98; 2000-2001) and shorter spans in both Egypt and Malaysia more recently.
I have taken up several service and leadership roles in the Law and Society Association and the American Political Science Association, including co-founder and convener (with Intisar Rabb, Harvard University) of the Islamic Law and Society Collaborative Research Network.
Please feel free to get in touch. I can be reached at tmoustafa@sfu.ca.