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Pop Culture

Arab World Reporting

Corona Ya Corona: Arabic Pop Music Takes on the COVID-19 Pandemic

Posted on April 5, 2020 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ajam Media Collective on April 5, 2020. In times of crisis, musicians use their craft to make sense of realities confronting society. They help others come to

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Opinion

Yara Shahidi, the Iranian-American Star of ‘Black-ish,’ Is Breaking Stereotypes On & Off Screen

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Muftah on June 3,2016. Over the last two years, the hit ABC sitcom “Black-ish” has deftly explored issues of race, class, and gender in the United States

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Israel Opinion

‘Broad City’ Didn’t Just Go on Birthright — It Spent 21 Minutes Mocking It

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Alex Shams

Originally published on The Forward on April 28, 2016. Written by Alex Shams. When Ilana and Abby from “Broad City” announced last week that they were going on Birthright Israel,

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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

  • Workshop: Investigating Power
  • The “Terrorists” in My Grandmother’s Neighborhood
  • A Persian Christmas Story: How A Jewish Shrine in Qazvin Connects Palestine and Iran
  • ‘They Hit Everyone and Anyone’: From Lebanon, residents share what life has been like since Israel launched its attack.
  • Iran Braces for Uncertainty After President Raisi’s Death
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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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  • Yara Shahidi, the Iranian-American Star of 'Black-ish,' Is Breaking Stereotypes On & Off Screen
    Yara Shahidi, the Iranian-American Star of 'Black-ish,' Is Breaking Stereotypes On & Off Screen

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