• 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:

Star Street

Palestine Reporting

Bethlehem filled with hope as Christmas season approaches

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency on December 3, 2014. BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The Bethlehem of today is a far cry from the little village of Jesus’ era, and the historic

  • Share
Palestine Reporting

Bet Lahem Live festival brings Star Street back to life

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on June 18, 2014. Star Street was once the bustling heart of Bethlehem’s Old City, a vital link on the 1,500-year-old pilgrimage route from Jerusalem to

  • 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

  • Bulgarian Habibi: How Orientalist Stereotypes in Chalga Music Recover Memories of the Balkans’ Ottoman Past
    Bulgarian Habibi: How Orientalist Stereotypes in Chalga Music Recover Memories of the Balkans’ Ottoman Past
  • When Persian was an Indian Language: The Fables of Jameh ul-Tamseel from Medieval Hyderabad to Modern Iran
    When Persian was an Indian Language: The Fables of Jameh ul-Tamseel from Medieval Hyderabad to Modern Iran
  • Quiet Solidarity: The Underground Networks that Defied Israel's War on Iran
    Quiet Solidarity: The Underground Networks that Defied Israel's War on Iran
  • Inside Mexico's deep and unexpected legacy of Iranians
    Inside Mexico's deep and unexpected legacy of Iranians
  • Sedentary Fragmentation: Toward a Genealogy of Chicago’s Iranian Art Scene
    Sedentary Fragmentation: Toward a Genealogy of Chicago’s Iranian Art Scene
  • Killings reveal link between homophobia, anti-Arab racism
    Killings reveal link between homophobia, anti-Arab racism
  • Sofreh aqd: An inside look at Iranian weddings
    Sofreh aqd: An inside look at Iranian weddings
  • Israeli filmmaker explores life through the eyes of Palestinian teen
    Israeli filmmaker explores life through the eyes of Palestinian teen
  • “I’m Afraid a Bomb Will Kill Me in My Sleep”: Iranians React to Israel’s Attacks
    “I’m Afraid a Bomb Will Kill Me in My Sleep”: Iranians React to Israel’s Attacks
  • A Jewish Shrine inside a Mosque: the History of Ezekiel’s Tomb in Iraq
    A Jewish Shrine inside a Mosque: the History of Ezekiel’s Tomb in Iraq

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