Francesca Burke

Francesca Burke is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Brighton's School of Humanities and Social Science, leading the Politics and International Relations BA(Hons) program. Her research focuses on Middle East politics, particularly Palestinian activism under occupation, student movements, and transnational solidarity. She coordinates modules on Middle East politics and International Relations, and her work bridges academia with activism through primary sources like political graffiti and manifestos. Burke previously worked at Amnesty International and the Council for British Research in the Levant, and taught at the University of Oxford and University of Jordan.

• Education: PhD in Politics (University of Oxford, 2012), MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies (University of Oxford, 2005), MSc in International Politics (SOAS, 2003), MA in Politics (University of Edinburgh, 2002)

Her research interests include activism in repressive contexts, student movements' political roles, and transnational solidarity in anticolonial struggles. She co-edited Transnational solidarity: Anticolonialism in the global sixties (2022) and led the British Academy-funded project on post-Arab Uprising university education in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine. Awards include the Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize for her doctoral thesis on Palestinian student activism.

Burke actively engages with international conferences and workshops, including the 2022 presentation on transnational solidarity and the 2020 workshop on the 'Long Sixties.' She supervises PhD students in Middle Eastern politics, social movements, and higher education's political role.