Mona El-Ghobashy is a scholar of the history and sociology of politics in Egypt and the broader Middle East and North Africa. Her research examines the politics of law and courts, the varieties of protest, and the dynamics of limited elections in contemporary Egypt. Her 2021 book, Bread and Freedom: Egypt's Revolutionary Situation, analyzes the roots, trajectories, and aftermath of the 2011 uprising. It advances an argument about how to study the turbulent politics of revolution beyond standard approaches and polemics.
She teaches courses on democratization, revolutions, Middle East political and social history, medieval utopias, and seminars on the craft of research.