On November 4, 2014, the US Department of Justice put Palestinian-American Rasmea Odeh on trial for allegedly lying on her naturalization application ten years earlier, when she did not indicate that the Israeli state arrested, convicted, and imprisoned her in 1969. On October 27, foreshadowing the injustices to come, Judge Gershwin Drain ruled that Odeh could not speak of her imprisonment in Israel.
Often ignored in U.S. discussions on Egypt is how protests led by labor unions—many women-based labor unions in the manufacturing cities of Egypt—have catalyzed the Egyptian revolution (Paul Amar, 02-05-11). The women now holding down Tahrir Square as we speak—are of all ages and social groups and their struggle cannot be explained through Orientalist tropes that reduce Arab women to passive victims of culture or religion or Islam.
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.
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
Since I launched Liberate Your Research, one thing is now more clear to me than ever before. Radical scholars, especially interdisciplinary activist scholars, face disproportionate levels of overwhelm and anxiety in academia. Lacking go-to theories, or theoretical...
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...
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...
