Contemp Arab American Studies

This course is crosslisted with AMST 318. Students can register for either course. AMST 318 will be letter-graded. FAIR 336B will have narrative evaluations.

This course looks at the current state of activism around Arab American communities, focusing on the cause at the core of their criminalization: the plight of the Palestinian people. As the radical Red Nation collective asserts, “Palestine is the moral barometer of Indigenous North America." Similarly, the Movement for Black Lives affirms its “solidarity with oppressed people everywhere. That includes our Palestinian family.” And the Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies insists that Arab American Studies must be part of the K-12 through college curriculum.
Students will learn about the longstanding solidarity among different marginalized communities around this topic, as well as ongoing efforts by the government and Zionist groups to censor speech on Palestine, and political protest generally.