Join us for a book talk by Yasmin El-Rifae on her new book Radius: A Story of a Feminist Revolution (Verso, 2022).

The book follows the story of a group of women and men who formed Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment (Opantish) in Egypt in the years following the 2011 revolution, as mass sexual assaults were happening in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Opantish deployed hundreds of volunteers, scouts rescue teams, and getaway drivers to intervene in cases of sexual violence against women protesting in the square. El-Rifae was one of Opantish's organizers, and the book is an intimate and evocative account of the group's work.

Dr. Sophie Chamas will join Yasmin El-Rifae to discuss the themes of the book, as well its social, political and literary implications for the global feminist movement.

Yasmin El-Rifae writes and edits reportage, essays, and cultural criticism. She is the author of Radius, a narrative history of a militant feminist group which fought mass sexual assaults during Egypt's 2011 revolution. She is also a co-producer of the Palestine Festival of Literature.

Sophie Chamas is lecturer in gender studies at SOAS, University of London. Their work focuses on the life, death, and afterlife of the radical political imagination in the MENA and its diaspora from a queer feminist perspective. They are part of the editorial collective for Feminist Review.