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"Arab Futures and Pasts: Palestine+" Faculty Research Network Fosters Critical Conversations

People in Project

Alexander Key (Comp Lit) 

Nora Barakat (History)

Reem Salem (Comp Lit)

Project Description:

The "Arab Futures and Pasts: Palestine+" Faculty Research Network is designed to motivate sustained scholarly engagement with the question of the Palestinian present - in the context of broader currents and comparative moments in the Arab world. 

Led by Alexander Key (Comp Lit) and Nora Barakat (History), with the assistance of graduate student coordinator Reem Salem (Comp Lit), the 2024-2025 Faculty Research Network (FRN) "Arab Futures and Pasts: Palestine+" focuses on questions of power and politics, with an eye to histories of colonialism and extraction but a core focus on the current moment of genocide, scholasticide, extensive destruction of the built environment, the upending of Palestinian political and social organizations and the new regional and global structures that are emerging.

"Arab Futures and Pasts: Palestine+” aims to synthesize, integrate and clarify concepts germane to Palestinian identity and politics, Islam and the secular in North America and the Arab world, and the relationship between agency and scholarship. This network will pursue events and activities that seek to build capacity across Stanford communities (faculty, students, staff) on these concepts, promote a deliberative culture about these ideas and histories, and disseminate historical and contemporary debates and developments about these concepts. Winter and Spring 2025 activities will include discussions with a series of key interlocutors including Tareq Baconi on Palestinian identity and politics and Sherman Jackson on Islam and the secular.  Events for this FRN are supported by the Research Institute of CCSRE, the Middle Eastern Studies Forum, and the Department of Comparative Literature, among others.

All Stanford students, staff, and faculty are welcome to attend the "Arab Futures and Pasts: Palestine+” FRN events.

Supported by the Research Institute of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity, the Faculty Research Network (FRN) program provides CCSRE Faculty Affiliates with the funding, space, and visibility needed to catalyze a series of impact- and inquiry- driven conversations that center issues of race, ethnicity, and inequality. 

SpeakerEvent Details 
Maha Nasser

October 15, 2024

4:00 - 5:30pm

Building 260, Pigott Hall

Arab Studies Teach-In

November 7, 2024

12:00 - 1:20pm

A3C Couchroom

David Larsen

January 15, 2025

4:30pm

260-252

Jennifer Mogannam

January 16, 2026

4:00pm

CCSRE Conference Room, Building 360

Huda Fakhreddine

February 5, 2025

4:30pm

260-252

Tareq Baconi

February 27, 2025

12:00pm

CCSRE Conference Room, Building 360

Alisson Walter 

March 17, 2025

4:00pm

CCSRE Conference Room, Building 360

Mosab Abu Toha

April  3, 2025

Tressider Oak 

Perla IssaApril 17, 2025
Sherman Jackson

April 22, 2025

4:00pm

CCSRE Conference Room, Building 360

Nadim BawalsaApril 29, 2025

For more information on these sponsored activities and to learn how you can participate in this FRN’s initiatives, contact Reem Salem (reemsal [at] stanford.edu (reemsal[at]stanford[dot]edu)).