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Palestine Reporting

Amid repression, Palestine student politics revive democratic hopes

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency on June 2, 2015. BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — It has been nine years since Palestine’s second and last parliamentary elections in 2006, and although hopes were

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Palestine Reporting

Birzeit students rally as thousands turn out to vote

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency  on April 22, 2015. RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Thousands of students at Birzeit University in the central West Bank went to the polls on Wednesday, bringing

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Palestine Reporting

Widespread flooding in Gaza forces thousands to flee homes

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency on Dec. 13, 2013. BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The Gaza Strip was pounded by fierce winds and rain again on Friday as flooding reached dangerous levels

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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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