"Showcases a set of rich, wide-ranging and field-forming essays in Arab American and SWANA Studies. Essential reading for anyone interested in gaining a critical understanding of the field’s multifaceted and intersecting dimensions as well as its central concerns and future directions."—Yen Le Espiritu, founding faculty of the Critical Refugee Studies Collective
"Sajjilu Arab American: A Reader in SWANA Studies brings an interdisciplinary and historical lens to the field of Arab American Studies. The editors, each formidable scholars in their respective fields, illuminate key issues in the identified collection of articles while they simultaneously challenge tendencies to look for simple understandings of the Arab American experience. This reader is a must for those interested in advancing critical discourse on race and ethnicity."—Kristine J. Ajrouch, Eastern Michigan University
"The essays in this impressive collection span a range of issues and events that have shaped Arab Americans' experiences and identities over more than a century. Readers will find in these pages a treasure trove of insights, stories, and probing analyses that, individually and together, do justice to the richness of the interdisciplinary field of SWANA studies."—Lisa Hajjar, co-editor of Jadaliyya
"With its expansive understandings of feminism, literature, and politics, this anthology brilliantly foregrounds Arab American studies as a multidisciplinary field of analysis in the Americas and globally. Readers will thereby appreciate the ways in which this volume advances as much as it critiques the intellectual and political contributions and trajectories of Arab American studies."—Keith L. Camacho, editor of Reppin': Pacific Islander Youth and Native Justice
"An excellent reader in the sense that it addresses the eminent issues in the field of Arab American studies, including but not limited to, its absence in academia, the complex histories of Arabs in the United States, the stereotypes of Arabs and Middle Eastern individuals in the US, the excessive scrutinizing of Arab Americans after 9/11."—Dalia Gomaa, author of The Non-National in Contemporary American Literature: Ethnic Women Writers and Problematic Belongings
"Gathers the most groundbreaking work about Arab Americans, comprehensively interweaving issues of structural racism, diasporic and transnational politics of gender and sexuality with discussions of demography, the post-9/11 surveillance state, and American Islamophobia."—Stephen Sheehi, professor of Arabic studies, William & Mary
Description
Both a summative description of the field and an exploration of new directions, this multidisciplinary reader addresses issues central to the fields of Arab American, US Muslim, and Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) American studies. Taking a broad conception of the Americas, this collection simultaneously registers and critically reflects upon major themes in the field, including diaspora, migration, empire, race and racialization, securitization, and global South solidarity. The collection will be essential reading for scholars in Arab/SWANA American studies, Asian American studies, and race, ethnicity, and Indigenous studies, now and well into the future.
Contributors include:
Evelyn Alsultany, Carol W. N. Fadda, Hisham D. Aidi, Nadine Naber, Therí Pickens, Steven Salaita, Ella Shohat and Sarah M.A. Gualtieri.
About the Author
Louise Cainkar is professor of sociology and social welfare and justice at Marquette University. She is the author of Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience after 9/11 and co-editor of Arab American Women: Representation and Refusal.
Pauline Homsi Vinson is adjunct professor in English at Diablo Valley College and cofounder of the Arab American Studies Association.
Amira Jarmakani is professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at San Diego State University and author of both An Imperialist Love Story: Desert Romances and the War on Terror and Imagining Arab Womanhood: The Cultural Mythology of Veils, Harems, and Belly Dancers in the U.S.
September 2022