The Center for Middle Eastern & North African Studies (CMENAS) is pleased to announce the recipient of this year’s Mahfoud Bennoune Memorial Thesis Award. The winner is recent graduate Zhanyang Liu for her thesis titled “Dissent and Division: Arab Protest Behavior in Israel’s 2023 Judicial Crisis”. The award is given by CMENAS to support an outstanding master's thesis in memory of Dr. Mahfoud Bennoune, a beloved Algerian professor, author, teacher, human rights advocate, and father, who studied at the University of Michigan. Liui’s thesis emphasizes the values that Dr. Bennoune fought for, including tolerance, secularism, human rights, and women’s rights.
Zhanyang Liu graduated in May 2025 with a Masters in International and Regional Studies (MIRS) with specialization in the Middle Eastern and North African studies. During her graduate studies at the University of Michigan, she conducted fieldwork in the Middle East, collecting data and employing ethnographic research methods while further developing her proficiency in Arabic dialects. Zhanyang’s academic interests include social movements, war and conflict, and identity studies. She plans on continuing in academia by pursuing a PhD in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
