• About me
  • Reporting
  • Opinion
  • Academic Work
  • Contact me

Alex Shams

  • About me
  • Reporting
  • Opinion
  • Academic Work
  • Contact me
Search for:

Alex Shams

  • About me
  • Reporting
  • Opinion
  • Academic Work
  • Contact me
Search for:
Tag:

CNN

Opinion

Don’t normalize Trump’s vision for America

Posted on February 2, 2017 by Alex Shams

Originally published on CNN on February 2, 2017. I am a child of a Muslim refugee. My father found safety and shelter in the United States after fleeing violence in

  • Share

About me

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

follow me on

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
Search for:

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.

follow

Popular posts

  • “Why Did So Many People Think This War Was a Good Idea?”
    “Why Did So Many People Think This War Was a Good Idea?”
  • Inside Mexico's deep and unexpected legacy of Iranians
    Inside Mexico's deep and unexpected legacy of Iranians
  • What Role Does Religion Play in Iran’s Protests?
    What Role Does Religion Play in Iran’s Protests?
  • Universities should defend students' right to free speech, not aid their repression
    Universities should defend students' right to free speech, not aid their repression
  • Our Man For Tehran
    Our Man For Tehran
  • Iran's Protesters Are Caught Between State Repression and Foreign Intervention
    Iran's Protesters Are Caught Between State Repression and Foreign Intervention
  • Sacralizing a Shia Public Sphere: Muharram Commemorations Across Iran
    Sacralizing a Shia Public Sphere: Muharram Commemorations Across Iran
  • How Nowruz is Celebrated Around the World
    How Nowruz is Celebrated Around the World
  • Sofreh aqd: An inside look at Iranian weddings
    Sofreh aqd: An inside look at Iranian weddings
  • Persianate Futurism: First Time on the Overnight Train from Tehran to Samarqand
    Persianate Futurism: First Time on the Overnight Train from Tehran to Samarqand

Archive

Categories

  • Academic Work
  • Arab World
  • El Salvador
  • Featured
  • India
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • Israel
  • Lebanon
  • Mexico
  • Oman
  • Opinion
  • Pakistan
  • Palestine
  • Reporting
  • USA
Back to top
Copyright © 2009–2026 Alex Shams