Before joining the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professor Bayat taught at the American University in Cairo for many years, and served as the director of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) holding the Chair of Society and Culture of the Modern Middle East at Leiden University, The Netherlands. In the meantime, he had visiting positions at the Universality of California, Berkeley, Colombia University, Oxford, and Brown. His current research concerns an understanding of the Arab revolutions-- historically, comparatively, and sociologically. In particular he is interested in understanding the place of popular classes in these revolutions with the intention to narrate the story of these (notably the Tunisian and Egyptian) revolutions from the perspective of subaltern classes.