Sa'ed Atshan

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Sa'ed Atshan (born 1984) is a Palestinian anthropologist and professor at Swarthmore College. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Atshan is Palestinian-American, was born in the United States, and identifies as Quaker. [2] He grew up in the West Bank, where he attended the Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank, as did several generations of his family. He was in high school during the Second Intifada. [2] In 2002, he moved to the United States to attend Swarthmore College for his undergraduate degree, [3] [4] graduating in 2006. [5] He later earned a Master's in Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and then a PhD in Anthropology at Harvard University, under the supervision of Dr. Arthur Kleinman, [6] and was then a Postdoctoral Fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. [7]

Activism

In the late 2000s, Atshan began volunteering with the Ramallah Friends School as a college counselor and mentor for students in their senior year. [2] He was a mentor to Kinnan Abdalhamid and Hisham Awartani.

In 2017, a planned speaking arrangement by Atshan at Friends' Central School, a Quaker school in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, was cancelled after some parents complained that Atshan supported the BDS movement. [8] [9] Two of the school's teachers, who invited Atshan on behalf of the school's Peace and Equality in Palestine club, were suspended. [8] Although the school later re-exetended the speaking invitation, Atshan declined, saying he would not speak at the school until they reinstated the suspended teachers. [7]

In 2018, Atshan's speaking engagement at the Jewish Museum Berlin was cancelled after comments from 2014 surfaced in which he called Israel an apartheid state. [10] Atshan's planned talk was titled "On Being Queer and Palestinian in East-Jerusalem", as part of the museum's exhibit on Jerusalem. [10] The talk ultimately took place and was hosted by the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI) Berlin. [11]

Career

Atshan is currently an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Anthropology and the Chair of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore College, a historically Quaker private liberal arts college near Philadelphia. [1]

Atshan was hired at Emory University in 2021, and was tenured in January 2022, becoming the first tenured Palestinian professor at the university. [12]

During the 2020–2021 academic year, Atshan was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Senior Research Scholar in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. [4]

Recognition

In 2020, Atshan was named one of Arab America Foundation's 40 Under 40. [13]

Atshan has also received awards such as the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, the Young Global Leader Award from the Council for the United States and Italy, the Kathryn Davis Fellowship for Peace, and he has been inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr. Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College. [14]

Personal life

Atshan is a Quaker and a pacifist; [2] he is also gay. [7]

Works

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References

  1. 1 2 "satshan1". www.swarthmore.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Martin, Rachel (December 3, 2023). "This Palestinian American professor leans on his Quaker faith during conflict". NPR. Retrieved December 3, 2023.
  3. ↑ Atshan, Maya Cohen and Sa’ed (2020-07-31). "A Vision of Jewish and Palestinian Connection". Jewish Journal. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  4. 1 2 Modi, Chintan Girish (2021-05-17). "The Sa'ed Atshan interview | 'For more and more queer Palestinians, desire, practice and identity are aligning with each other'". Firstpost. Retrieved 2024-01-02.
  5. ↑ "Dr. Sa'ed Atshan to return to Swarthmore College and the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies". Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore College. 2022-12-21. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  6. ↑ Dame, Marketing Communications: Web // University of Notre (2024-05-03). "Hope in the midst of despair: Lessons from keynoter Sa'ed Atshan // Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies // University of Notre Dame". Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  7. 1 2 3 "'It is time to break the silence': Palestinian professor speaks out after having speech cancelled under pressure". Mondoweiss. 2017-08-09. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  8. 1 2 "Quaker school suspends teachers over pro-BDS speaker invite". The Times of Israel. February 14, 2017. Retrieved December 3, 2023.
  9. ↑ Atshan, Sa'ed (2017-08-08). "Palestinian professor speaks out on cancellation of Friends' Central speech, stands with fired teachers". www.inquirer.com. Retrieved 2024-07-13.
  10. 1 2 Weinthal, Benjamin (2018-07-23). "Envoy gets anti-Israel talk at Berlin Jewish museum canceled". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  11. ↑ "Sa'ed Atshan". ICI Berlin. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  12. ↑ Kamin, Grace (2022-03-30). "Sa'ed Atshan, first Palestinian professor tenured at Emory, brings radical humanization to the classroom". The Emory Wheel. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  13. ↑ America, Arab (2020-10-22). "Arab America Foundation Announces 40 Under 40 Awardees". Arab America. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  14. ↑ "Dr. Sa'ed Atshan to return to Swarthmore College and the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies – Peace & Conflict Studies Blog" . Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  15. ↑ Anderson, Lisa (3 February 2022). "Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique". Foreign Affairs (January/February 2022). ISSN   0015-7120.
  16. ↑ Al-Kurdi, Ahmad (2022). "Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique: by Sa'ed Atshan, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2020, 296 pp, $90 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1503609945". Journal of Israeli History: 1–3. doi:10.1080/13531042.2021.2033451. S2CID   246593150.
  17. ↑ Salman, Sara (2021). "Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique". Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews. 50 (5): 392–394. doi:10.1177/00943061211036051. S2CID   237393393.
  18. ↑ Savcı, Evren (2021). "Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique". Journal of Middle East Women's Studies. 17 (1): 117–120. doi:10.1215/15525864-8790266. S2CID   233852212.
  19. ↑ Shehadeh, Lana (1 October 2020). "Book review". Arab Studies Quarterly. 42 (4). doi: 10.13169/arabstudquar.42.4.0315 . S2CID   245941609.
  20. ↑ Hoad, Neville (2022). "Rehashed Liberalism, the Accusation of Radical Purity, and the Alibi of the "Personal"". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 28 (2): 315–319. doi:10.1215/10642684-9608273.
  21. ↑ Mende, Tugrul (30 April 2020). "The moral triangle: Germans, Israelis and Palestinians in Berlin An Interview with Sa′ed Atshan and Katharina Galor about the difficult, complex relationship of these three communities". openDemocracy . Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  22. ↑ Lupo, Joshua (9 February 2022). "Introduction to Symposium on The Moral Triangle". Contending Modernities. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  23. ↑ Lindholm, Helena (2022). "The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians . Sa'ed Atshan and Katharina Galor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020, 256 pp. $25.95, paper. ISBN 978-1-4780-0837-8". Journal of Anthropological Research. 78 (1): 144–145. doi:10.1086/717825. S2CID   247267197.
  24. ↑ Younes, Anna-E. (2022). "The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians: by Sa'ed Atshan and Katharina Galor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. 256 pages. $99.95 cloth, $25.95 paper". Journal of Palestine Studies: 1–3. doi:10.1080/0377919X.2022.2048607. S2CID   248287342.
  25. ↑ Rochde, Achim (2020). The Moral Triangle. H-Soz-Kult. ISBN   9781478008378 . Retrieved 12 May 2022.
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