Evelyn Alsultany
· ProfessorUniversity of Southern California · American Studies and Ethnicity
Active 2004–2025
About
Evelyn Alsultany is a professor of American studies and ethnicity at USC Dornsife. She received the 2023 Richard A. Yarborough Mentoring Award from the American Studies Association, which recognizes her for her exceptional commitment and excellence in mentoring and advising minority scholars and underrepresented faculty. Her work and contributions are recognized within the academic community, emphasizing her role in mentoring and supporting scholars in her field.
Research topics
- Social Science
- Sociology
- Computer Science
- Pedagogy
- Gender studies
- Geology
- Linguistics
Selected publications
Pedagogies of Resistance: Why Anti-Muslim Racism Matters
UNC Libraries · 2025-06-27
articleOpen accessSenior authorThe following interview with a collective of scholars describes the organization, conceptualization, and thematic framework of the online syllabus #IslamophobiaisRacism. The goals of the syllabus include theorizing anti-Muslim racism and developing strategies to combat white supremacy.
Journal of Palestine Studies · 2024-10-01 · 3 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingFeminist Studies · 2023-01-01
article1st authorCorrespondingFeminist Studies · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingDemonizing Palestinians Evelyn Alsultany (bio) palestinian poet fady joudah wrote, "I am terrified that so many never asked themselves the basic question: do I really believe that Palestinian lives are equal to Jewish lives? For too many, the answer is a resounding "No."1 Dehumanizing people is central to wars and genocides. Charges of terrorism and charges of anti-Semitism are two common dehumanizing mechanisms that suppress outrage at the devastating killing of Palestinians. One of the most common refrains is that Israel is entitled to self-defense. On October 7, President Joe Biden said "[ . . . ] the United States stands with the people of Israel in the face of this terrorist assaults. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Full stop."2 Israeli violence is framed as noble and necessary, while Palestinian violence/resistance to colonization and occupation is framed as savage and brutal. The result is a lack of outrage at the Israeli state's killing of Palestinian civilians. The World Health Organization estimates that one Palestinian child is killed and two injured every ten minutes.3 But that, apparently, is self-defense. Terrorism is the term used by states to excuse and legitimize their own violence and condemn and delegitimize the violence of others. The charge of terrorism on its own is a very effective dehumanizing tactic, but the Israeli state couples it with the charge of anti-Semitism, or rather, what Tom Pessah calls anti-Semitizing.4 Anti-Semitizing [End Page 540] is classifying all criticism of Israeli state violence as anti-Semitic. Support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, a nonviolent campaign demanding that Israel end its occupation of Palestine, is criminalized in many US states because it is deemed anti-Semitic. Federal and state laws have redefined anti-Semitism to include criticisms of Israel. It's hard to escape the conclusion that supporting Palestinians, and being Palestinian, are simply crimes. When those outside Gaza express outrage at genocidal conditions and show support for Palestine, they are quickly demonized. Whether it is through accusations of terrorism or charges of anti-Semitism, there is an assault on anything and everything Palestinian, from expressions of solidarity to Palestinian life itself. [End Page 541] Evelyn Alsultany evelyn alsultany is a professor in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion (nyu Press, 2022) and Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11 (nyu Press, 2012). Footnotes 1. Fady Joudah, "A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation," Literary Hub, November 1, 2023, https://lithub.com/a-palestinian-meditation-in-a-time-of-annihilation/. 2. "Remarks by President Biden on the Terrorist Attacks in Israel," The White House, October 7, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/07/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-terrorist-attacks-in-israel/. 3. Michelle Nichols, "A Child Killed on Average Every 10 Minutes in Gaza, Says who Chief," Reuters, November 10, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/child-killed-average-every-10-minutes-gaza-says-who-chief-2023-11-10/. 4. Tom Pessah, "'Anti-Semitizing' Pro-Palestinian Activism Comes at a Price," +972 Magazine, August 21, 2016, https://www.972mag.com/anti-semitizing-pro-palestinian-activism-comes-at-a-price/. Copyright © 2023 Feminist Studies, Inc.
Introduction: How Muslims Get Included through Crisis Diversity
New York University Press eBooks · 2022-11-11
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingNew York University Press eBooks · 2022-12-31
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingNew York University Press eBooks · 2022-12-31 · 1 citations
book1st authorCorrespondingPROSE Award- Media and Cultural Studies Finalist How diversity initiatives end up marginalizing Arab Americans and US Muslims One of Donald Trump’s first actions as President was to sign an executive order to limit Muslim immigration to the United States, a step toward the “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” he had campaigned on. This extraordinary act of Islamophobia provoked unprecedented opposition: Hollywood movies and mainstream television shows began to feature more Muslim characters in contexts other than terrorism; universities and private businesses included Muslims in their diversity initiatives; and the criminal justice system took hate crimes against Muslims more seriously. Yet Broken argues that, even amid this challenge to institutionalized Islamophobia, diversity initiatives fail on their promise by only focusing on crisis moments. Evelyn Alsultany argues that Muslims get included through “crisis diversity,” where high-profile Islamophobic incidents are urgently responded to and then ignored until the next crisis. In the popular cultural arena of television, this means interrogating even those representations of Muslims that others have celebrated as refreshingly positive. What kind of message does it send, for example, when a growing number of “good Muslims” on TV seem to have arrived there, ironically, only after leaving the faith? In the realm of corporations, she critically examines the firing of high-profile individuals for anti-Muslim speech—a remedy that rebrands corporations as anti-racist while institutional racism remains intact. At universities, Muslim students get included in diversity, equity, and inclusion plans but that gets disrupted if they are involved in Palestinian rights activism. Finally, she turns to hate crime laws revealing how they fail to address root causes. In each of these arenas, Alsultany finds an institutional pattern that defangs the promise of Muslim inclusion, deferring systemic change until and through the next “crisis.”
New York University Press eBooks · 2022-11-11
book-chapter1st authorCorresponding1 Stereotype-Confined Expansions
New York University Press eBooks · 2022-11-11
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingNew York University Press eBooks · 2022-11-11
book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
Frequent coauthors
- 3 shared
Nadine Naber
- 3 shared
Ella Shohat
New York University
- 2 shared
Juliane Hammer
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- 2 shared
Rabab Abdulhadi
- 2 shared
Su’ad Abdul Khabeer
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- 1 shared
Michael Curtin
- 1 shared
M.C.O.C. Coelho
- 1 shared
Bill Kirkpatrick
Awards & honors
- 2023 Richard A. Yarborough Mentoring Award from the American…
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