• 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:

Indian Ocean

Featured Iran Reporting

Hormuz: A Psychedelic Ride through a Geological Wonder

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Alex Shams

Originally published in Kinfolk Islands in September 2022, pgs. 74-85. The Strait of Hormuz gets a bad rap. Sandwiched between Iran, Oman and the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf, this

  • Share
Arab World Featured Oman Reporting

Muscat: Where the Arab World Meets the Indian Ocean

Posted on August 27, 2019 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on August 27, 2019. All photos by author Alex Shams. In Muscat’s souq, Arabic, Baluchi, Urdu, Hindi, and Malayalam mix freely, alongside a variety

  • 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

  • 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
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

  • Iranian Women Rapping and Kicking Ass
    Iranian Women Rapping and Kicking Ass
  • Looking A Tyrant In the Eye: Iran's Long Struggle for Freedom and Justice
    Looking A Tyrant In the Eye: Iran's Long Struggle for Freedom and Justice
  • In photos: Hiking the ruins of Lifta
    In photos: Hiking the ruins of Lifta
  • Quarantine Kitchen: Iranians share recipes, flavors, and joy despite the threat of coronavirus
    Quarantine Kitchen: Iranians share recipes, flavors, and joy despite the threat of coronavirus
  • Muscat: Where the Arab World Meets the Indian Ocean
    Muscat: Where the Arab World Meets the Indian Ocean
  • À la découverte de la communauté arabe du Mexique
    À la découverte de la communauté arabe du Mexique
  • The Young Turks of Prizren
    The Young Turks of Prizren
  • Naskh va Taaliq: Connections Between Iran and Pakistan, Old and New
    Naskh va Taaliq: Connections Between Iran and Pakistan, Old and New
  • Concrete tent embodies contradictions of Palestine refugee life
    Concrete tent embodies contradictions of Palestine refugee life
  • New identity law raises fears of Israeli effort to divide Christians
    New identity law raises fears of Israeli effort to divide Christians

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 © 2009–2022 Alex Shams