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Alex Shams

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Alex Shams

  • About me
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Reporting

Palestinian Christians ask Maronite patriarch to reconsider Jerusalem visit

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency. on May 10, 2014. BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A prominent Palestinian Christian activist group has urged the Lebanese patriarch to reconsider an upcoming trip to

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Palestine Reporting

Interview: Diana Buttu on Palestinian unity and the way forward

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on April 26, 2014. Diana Buttu is a Canadian-Palestinian lawyer. From 2000-2005, she served in the PLO’s Negotiations Support Unit as a legal and

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Palestine Reporting

Easter in the destroyed Palestinian village of Maalul

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency on April 19, 2014. MAALUL (Ma’an) — As thousands of Palestinian Christians descend on Jerusalem for Holy Week festivities, the villagers of Maalul are busy

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Palestine Reporting

Palestinian Christians receive the Holy Fire in Bethlehem

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on April 19, 2014. Thousands of Palestinian Christians marched in cities and villages across the Holy Land on Saturday to receive the holy fire

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Reporting

Watch: Christian groups decry Israeli restrictions ahead of Easter

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency on April 14, 2014. BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Palestinian Christian groups in Jerusalem have launched a campaign condemning Israeli restrictions on freedom of worship in advance

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Palestine Reporting

Thousands run the Palestine Marathon in Bethlehem

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on April 11, 2014. BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — More than 3,000 runners from around the world took part in the second annual Palestine Marathon on

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Reporting

Interview: Nadia Abu El-Haj on archaeology and the Zionist project

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on April 9, 2014. In early January, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced that it would begin excavation on an archaeological site inside a Jewish

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Palestine Reporting

Designing the ‘Ceremonial Uniform’ for the Palestinian Authority: An Interview with Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on March 27, 2014. “The Ceremonial Vniform” opened to the public at Birzeit University Museum on March 20. Created by Palestinian artist Omar Joseph

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Opinion

A Nowruz Uprising: Ringing in the Persian New Year with a Spirit of Resistance

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on March 19, 2014. The Persian New Year 1391 is upon us and it seems that yet again that we will celebrate amidst a climate of

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Reporting USA

Palestine student group banned at Boston-area university

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on March 16, 2014. A pro-Palestinian student group at a university in Boston was banned last week in what student leaders are calling a

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About me

Alex Shams is an Iranian-American writer and a PhD student of Anthropology at the University of Chicago.

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Recent posts

  • Looking A Tyrant In the Eye: Iran’s Long Struggle for Freedom and Justice
  • Iran After Khamenei
  • Iran’s Protesters Are Caught Between State Repression and Foreign Intervention
  • Quiet Solidarity: The Underground Networks that Defied Israel’s War on Iran
  • Our Man For Tehran
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About

Born and raised in an Iranian-American family in Los Angeles, Alex Shams has long been fascinated by the stories that places can tell us. Growing up, he learned Persian and Spanish; in college, he learned Arabic and studied abroad at the American University of Cairo before moving to Beirut after graduation. After receiving his master’s in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard, he moved to Bethlehem, Palestine, where he was a journalist at Ma’an News Agency, the largest independent Palestinian news organization. He received his PhD. from the University of Chicago in Sociocultural Anthropology. His dissertation, entitled “Constructing Islamic Modernity: Power, Religion, and Masculinity in Post-Revolutionary Iran,” was based on three years of ethnographic research in Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan as well as archival research in the British Library and Ba’ath Party Archives.

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Popular posts

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