Maytha Alhassen

A Religion and Public Life, Media and Entertainment Fellow at Harvard University, Maytha Alhassen is a historian, journalist, poet, and organizer. As a journalist, she worked as an on-air host for Al Jazeera English and has also done field reporting for such outlets as CNN, Huffington PostMicBoston ReviewThe Baffler, and CounterPunch. In 2017, she received her PhD in American studies and Ethnicity from USC and gave a TED talk poem on her ancestral relationship to Syria as part of an awarded TED Residency. She has co-edited a book on the Arab uprisings, Demanding Dignity: Young Voices from the Front Lines of the Arab Revolutions (White Cloud Press, 2012), and authored Haqq and Hollywood: Illuminating 100 Years of Muslim Tropes and How to Transform Them (Pop Culture Collaborative, 2018). And she has helped launch multiple social justice organizations, including the Social Justice Institute at Occidental College, Believers Bail Out, and, in the wake of George Floyd’s brutal murder, the Arabs for Black Lives Collective. Alhassen currently sits on the board of Feminist Studies in Religion, Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, and Borderlands for Equity. 

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