Sean Foley
Biographic Data
| ID | 4447752 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sean Foley |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sean |
| FAMILY NAME | Foley |
| SIGNATURE | FOLEY S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Middle Tennessee State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8696-653X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
To See the Kingdom Through a New Lens
Despite the recent boom in Saudi Arabia’s film industry, scholarly literature addressing the topic remains limited. This article fills the gap by drawing on my extensive research of the Saudi film industry, which has made innovative contributions to rethinking how we approach Saudi film and the Kingdom’s culture more broadly. Here I include interviews conducted in Saudi Arabia and Japan between October 2023 and May 2024. Among the individuals int…
Sophistic Speech and False Statements in Plato's Sophist
Plato's Sophist features a discussion of false statements, the literal sense of which has been the source of much scholarly controversy. Two readings of the discussion, the Oxford Interpretation and the Incompatibility Range Interpretation, seem especially plausible. This essay enters the exegetical debate by placing the discussion of false statements in the broader context of the dialogue, which is principally concerned with sophistic speech, no…
The Economy of the Gulf States
Over the last decade, there has been an explosion of interest in the Arab monarchies of the Gulf, with an infusion of new scholars, who have challenged established theories while opening new fronti
Sex, Drugs, and Bitcoin
Cryptocurrencies are among the largest unregulated markets in the world. We find that approximately one-quarter of bitcoin users are involved in illegal activity. We estimate that around $76 billion of illegal activity per year involve bitcoin (46% of bitcoin transactions), which is close to the scale of the U.S. and European markets for illegal drugs. The illegal share of bitcoin activity declines with mainstream interest in bitcoin and with the…
“The Distant Early Warning System”
“Social media,” Saudi artist Abdullah al-Shehri (known as Shaweesh) observes, is the “best tool we have available to showcase and express our art,” because it allows millions of Saudis to share and comment on a given work of art simultaneously. Building on this insight, this essay argues that Saudi artists, who have among the largest followings on the country's social media, have used the online public sphere to build a new social movement. They …
Changing Saudi Arabia
T. E. Lawrence once observed that Saudi Arabia had "so little art" that it could "be said to have no art at all." Whether that was once the case is arguable. But that it is not the case now is clear in Sean Foley's Changing Saudi Arabia. Exploring the contemporary arts movement in Saudi Arabia in the context of the kingdom's changing political realities, Foley finds that artists are expressing thoughts and feelings that the Saudi public typically…
Seek Knowledge Even If It Takes You to China (Via Washington)Saudi Arabia and China in the Twenty-First Century
For much of the last twenty years, China’s ties with Saudi Arabia have been understood in commercial terms, with most scholars arguing that the relationship has little cultural or historical depth. Drawing on multiple trips to China between 2011 and 2015 along with a ten-month period living continuously in Saudi Arabia in 2013 and 2014, this paper argues that there are factors other than economics that should be considered: namely, historical tie…
Legitimizing Transformation without Calling it Change
For decades, many scholars have contended that Saudi Arabia is a fixed political system, where a conservative monarchy uses advanced technology, oil revenues, and religion to dominate the people. Such a system is often portrayed as inherently unstable, a seemingly never-ending series of collisions between an unchanging traditional political structure seeking to hold on to power at any cost and a dynamic modernity—a view encapsulated in a phrase e…
When Collision Emerges as Unexpected Harmony
Despite sharing many of the socio-economic and political problems that led to revolutions in other Arab states, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia experienced little unrest, a fact many in the West attributed to the Kingdom’s closed political system. The absolute monarchy has been viewed as thwarting political dissension through kinship and religious alliances and sharing of oil revenues. This article aims at reframing mainstream Western explanations of…
Re‐Orientalizing the Gulf
The Arab Gulf States
The Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya, Islamic Sainthood, and Religion in Modern Times
This article discusses Shaykh Khalid Naqshbandi (1776–1827); his Sufi brotherhood, the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya; and Muslim sainthood. It argues that social movement theory allows us to see the ongoing influence of sainthood in Muslim societies and that Khalid’s success rested on his ideological flexibility, appeal to multiple audiences, and emphasis on the hereafter. The article also observes that the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya has addressed a des…
The Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya, Islamic Sainthood, and Religion in Modern Times
This article discusses Shaykh Khalid Naqshbandi (1776–1827); his Sufi brotherhood, the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya; and Muslim sainthood. It argues that social movement theory allows us to see the ongoing influence of sainthood in Muslim societies and that Khalid’s success rested on his ideological flexibility, appeal to multiple audiences, and emphasis on the hereafter. The article also observes that the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya has addressed a des…
The Arab Gulf States
Re‐Orientalizing the Gulf
When Collision Emerges as Unexpected Harmony
Despite sharing many of the socio-economic and political problems that led to revolutions in other Arab states, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia experienced little unrest, a fact many in the West attributed to the Kingdom’s closed political system. The absolute monarchy has been viewed as thwarting political dissension through kinship and religious alliances and sharing of oil revenues. This article aims at reframing mainstream Western explanations of…
Legitimizing Transformation without Calling it Change
For decades, many scholars have contended that Saudi Arabia is a fixed political system, where a conservative monarchy uses advanced technology, oil revenues, and religion to dominate the people. Such a system is often portrayed as inherently unstable, a seemingly never-ending series of collisions between an unchanging traditional political structure seeking to hold on to power at any cost and a dynamic modernity—a view encapsulated in a phrase e…
Seek Knowledge Even If It Takes You to China (Via Washington)Saudi Arabia and China in the Twenty-First Century
For much of the last twenty years, China’s ties with Saudi Arabia have been understood in commercial terms, with most scholars arguing that the relationship has little cultural or historical depth. Drawing on multiple trips to China between 2011 and 2015 along with a ten-month period living continuously in Saudi Arabia in 2013 and 2014, this paper argues that there are factors other than economics that should be considered: namely, historical tie…
Sex, Drugs, and Bitcoin
Cryptocurrencies are among the largest unregulated markets in the world. We find that approximately one-quarter of bitcoin users are involved in illegal activity. We estimate that around $76 billion of illegal activity per year involve bitcoin (46% of bitcoin transactions), which is close to the scale of the U.S. and European markets for illegal drugs. The illegal share of bitcoin activity declines with mainstream interest in bitcoin and with the…
“The Distant Early Warning System”
“Social media,” Saudi artist Abdullah al-Shehri (known as Shaweesh) observes, is the “best tool we have available to showcase and express our art,” because it allows millions of Saudis to share and comment on a given work of art simultaneously. Building on this insight, this essay argues that Saudi artists, who have among the largest followings on the country's social media, have used the online public sphere to build a new social movement. They …
Changing Saudi Arabia
T. E. Lawrence once observed that Saudi Arabia had "so little art" that it could "be said to have no art at all." Whether that was once the case is arguable. But that it is not the case now is clear in Sean Foley's Changing Saudi Arabia. Exploring the contemporary arts movement in Saudi Arabia in the context of the kingdom's changing political realities, Foley finds that artists are expressing thoughts and feelings that the Saudi public typically…
The Economy of the Gulf States
Over the last decade, there has been an explosion of interest in the Arab monarchies of the Gulf, with an infusion of new scholars, who have challenged established theories while opening new fronti
Sophistic Speech and False Statements in Plato's Sophist
Plato's Sophist features a discussion of false statements, the literal sense of which has been the source of much scholarly controversy. Two readings of the discussion, the Oxford Interpretation and the Incompatibility Range Interpretation, seem especially plausible. This essay enters the exegetical debate by placing the discussion of false statements in the broader context of the dialogue, which is principally concerned with sophistic speech, no…
To See the Kingdom Through a New Lens
Despite the recent boom in Saudi Arabia’s film industry, scholarly literature addressing the topic remains limited. This article fills the gap by drawing on my extensive research of the Saudi film industry, which has made innovative contributions to rethinking how we approach Saudi film and the Kingdom’s culture more broadly. Here I include interviews conducted in Saudi Arabia and Japan between October 2023 and May 2024. Among the individuals int…
Political science (9 works) · Socioeconomic Development in MENA (8 works) · History (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Islamic Studies and History (4 works) · Business (3 works) · Computer Science (3 works)