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Alex Shams

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Opinion

Opinion

Congress Is About to Pass a Dangerously Racist Bill. Our Response Must Be Solidarity Against Islamophobia.

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on the Huffington Post. The last few weeks have seen a dangerous escalation of rhetoric targeting Muslims and Middle Eastern-Americans, as the national media and Republican presidential hopeful

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Opinion

Sacralizing a Shia Public Sphere: Muharram Commemorations Across Iran

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on December 1, 2015. The following is a photo essay by Ali Karjoo-Ravary, a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Opinion Pakistan

Exhausted Geographies: Mapping the Dream of Pakistan in the Streets of Karachi

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on November 12, 2015. In Karachi, the dream of Pakistan – in all of its glory, misgivings, failures, and triumphs – has become reality.

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Opinion

Obama Defied GOP to Make Peace with Iran — Now It’s Time for Palestine

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published in Huffington Post. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vindictive policies are creating a climate in which Palestinians are once again rising up to reject their lack of freedom

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Israel Opinion Palestine

Killings reveal link between homophobia, anti-Arab racism

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on the Washington Blade on Aug. 15, 2015. Shira Banki, a 16-year-old girl who was stabbed during a Jerusalem Pride march, succumbed to her injuries on Aug. 2,

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Iran Opinion

إيران “فارسية” ؟: تحديات الأسطورة الآرية والتعصب العرقي الفارسي

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on June 30, 2015. To read the original article in English, please click here. نشرت هذه المقالة لأول مرة باللغة الإنجليزية، تجدونها هنا. الكاتب هو اليكس شمس وهو

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Israel Opinion Palestine

Seattle mayor’s Israel trip highlights dangers of ‘pinkwashing’

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on the Washington Blade. Ed Murray (Photo by Ryan Georgi; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)   On Monday, Seattle mayor Ed Murray touched down in Israel as part of a

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Opinion

Hamas bloc wins over student vote in Birzeit University elections

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on April 28, 2015. RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — A student bloc of the Hamas movement on Wednesday came out on top in the closely-followed elections

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Iran Israel Opinion Palestine

The Politics of Boycotting Israel while Fighting Sanctions on Iran

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Jadaliyya on October 3, 2014. By: Alex Shams and Ali Abdi As the bombs rained down on Gaza this summer, we were reminded yet again of the

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Iran Opinion

Sectarian War or Political Mistake?

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally Published in Andisheh-ye Pouya, Tir 1393.

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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

  • 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
  • Israel’s Bombs Have Stopped Falling, But Iranians Still Face an Uncertain Future
  • The Take: How can Iranians rebuild while crackdowns intensify?
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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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