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Arab American Femininities: Beyond Arab Virgin/American(ized) Whore

As I listened to my mother,1 I recalled several experiences growing up within a bicultural Arab American familial and communal context. Al Amerikan (Americans) were often referred to in derogatory sexualized terms. It was the trash culture—degenerate, morally bankrupt, and not worth investing in. Al Arab (Arabs), on the other hand, were referred to positively and associated with Arab family values and hospitality. Similarly, throughout the period of my ethnographic research among middle-class Arab American family and community networks in San Francisco, California,2 between January 1999 and August 2001, the theme of female sexuality circumscribed the ways my research participants imagined and contested culture, identity, and belonging.

Arab Americans and U.S. Racial Formations

Up until the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, several Arab American writers used the trope “invisibility” to refer to the place of Arab Americans within dominant U.S. discourses on race and ethnicity. A common theme in this literature was that while most government definitions classify Arab Americans as “white,” popular U.S. discourses tend to represent “Arabs” as different from and inferior to whites. Exemplifying this perspective, Helen Samhan referred to the racialization of Arab Americans within U.S. government racial schemas as “white, but not quite” (1999); Joanna Kadi argued that Arab Americans are the “most invisible of the invisibles” (1994); Therese Saliba published the essay “Resisting Invisibility: Arab Americans in Academia and Activism” (1999); and Nada Elia used the trope “the white sheep of the family” to analyze the ways in which Arab American women have been positioned among U.S. women of color feminist movements (2002).

Human Rights from the Ground Up: Women and the Egyptian Revolution

Amid ongoing battles over the shape of political systems in the Arab world, intense sexual violence against women in those countries, and protest movements by women fighting for their rights, advancing the causes of Arab women is of utmost importance. Yet international human rights advocates often confront the struggles of women in Arab countries far too simplistically.

ARAB AMERICA: Gender, Cultural Politics, and Activism

Radical Mothering and the Egyptian Revolution

Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 4PMInstitute for the Humanities701 S. Morgan St. // Chicago, IL Radical Mothering and the Egyptian Revolution This lecture is based upon ethnographic research with leftist women activists who participated in the Egyptian revolution of...

The Radical Future of Our Emotions

Are you in a toxic relationship with academia? During my Liberate Your Research workshops with faculty and graduate students of color, I ask participants to share how they feel about their research. In every workshop, nearly...

Disarming the Gatekeepers

Do you ever find yourself obsessing over what gatekeepers are going to think about your work? Have you ever feared that you may not survive an academic evaluation? Of course, hierarchical academic structures–reviews, tenure evaluations, etc.--create the conditions...

How to Write-Out Your Theoretical/Analytical Approach

Do you ever feel like you “can’t write theory”? If so, you’re not alone. Most of my workshop participants say that “writing theory” makes them feel: tortured | overwhelmed | stuck | in chaos | like an imposter But it’s not you! It’s what Barbara Christian affirmed...

Stop Giving Your Power Away

Academic oppression is breaking us. Nearly every social justice-based scholar I know goes through it—especially junior BIPOC scholars. Despite our expertise, many of us question the very worth of our scholarship within the university. The university’s competitive,...

Why We Need Interdependence

Do you ever feel too exhausted to write? Let’s be real. Internalized academic oppression exhausts us. Traumatic experiences in our fields and on our campuses can lead many of us to ruminate: Do I even have the right to be in academia? How is my critique any different...

Stop Second Guessing Yourself

Are you constantly feeling stuck while you are writing? Do you know what leads many radical scholars to feel stuck? We don't always feel like we are enough. Here are some of the ways I see it showing up: We constantly second guess our research ideas. We feel miserable...

The 3 R’s of Activist Research: Responsible, Relational, and Revolutionary (Part 1)

Scholars working within or outside the university tend to have access to radical theories about topics like abolition, decolonization, intersectionality, queer justice, disabilty justice, and beyond. Yet far less opportunity exists to learn and develop radical...

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