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Reporting

Iraq Reporting

The Iraqi Soundtrack to the War Against ISIS

Posted on October 12, 2017 by Alex Shams

Originally published by “Ajam Media Collective” The Iraqi military has conquered the last urban stronghold of the Islamic State group in Iraq. Following victories in Ramadi, Fallujah, Mosul, and Tel

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Iraq Reporting

Add A Little Lemon: The Food Blog Bringing Iraqi Cuisine Straight To Your Table

Posted on September 1, 2017 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on September 1, 2017. Iraqi cuisine is tremendously complex and varied. It reflects a culinary heritage that draws upon the influences of neighbors both

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Iran Reporting USA

Sedentary Fragmentation: Toward a Genealogy of Chicago’s Iranian Art Scene

Posted on August 22, 2017 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective. In 1951, a young Iranian man named Hannibal Alkhas moved from Tehran to Chicago, where he spent the next decade studying at the Art

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Iraq Palestine Reporting

The Iraqi soldiers who sacrificed everything to defend Palestine in 1948

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on May 15, 2017. The main road north from the West Bank city of Nablus winds between rolling hills covered in olive groves, abandoned

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Iraq Reporting

The Joys of Akitu, the Assyrian New Year

Posted on April 5, 2017 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on April 5, 2017. Assyrians around the world marked the festival of Akitu this week, a spring holiday that commemorates the beginning of the

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Palestine Reporting

Yacoub Shaheen, the Assyrian singer from Palestine taking Arab Idol by storm

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on February 17, 2017. In just a few short months, Yacoub Shaheen has gone from a local singer in the West Bank town of

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Iraq Reporting

Iraq’s Turkmen mobilise for a post-ISIL future

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Aljazeera on February 13, 2017. The minority group has long been divided along sectarian lines – but recent events could bring greater unity.   When fighters from

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Featured India Reporting

Welcome to the Beef Capital of India

Posted on November 20, 2016 by Alex Shams

In Hyderabad, a cosmopolitan culinary culture fights back against the Hindu nationalist current sweeping the nation. A dish of tallava gosht slow frying in peanut oil on a cast-iron tava

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Featured Mexico Reporting

The Arab heart of Mexico City

Posted on November 15, 2016 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Middle East Eye on November 15, 2016. Arab immigrants have become a normal part of everyday life, but in many ways they remain a community apart A

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Reporting USA

“Obama Built the Structures for Trump”: A Terrifying Legacy of Mass Deportation

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Truthout on October 16, 2016. Jose Juan Moreno sits in the room at the University Church on Chicago’s Southside where he has sought sanctuary from Immigration and

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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

  • “Why Did So Many People Think This War Was a Good Idea?”
  • 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
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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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    Inside Mexico's deep and unexpected legacy of Iranians
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    The Arab heart of Mexico City
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    From Tehran to Newcastle: “I Am Nasrine” and the Politics of Telling Migrant Narratives
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    Picturing the Iranian Everyday: An Interview with the Photographers Behind “Humans of Tehran”
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    How Jesus’s Hometown Is Coping With War at Christmas
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    Tehran from 435 Meters: The View from Geisha

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