Evelyn Alsultany

Representations of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. Media; Islamophobia/Anti-Muslim Racism/Racialization of Muslims; Arab American Studies and Muslim American Studies; Cultural Studies and Media Studies; Race, Popular Culture, and Cultural Politics

Evelyn Alsultany is a Professor in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity.

She is a leading expert on the history of representations of Arabs and Muslims in the US. media. She is the author of  Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion (NYU Press, 2022), which was listed as one of the 10 best scholarly books of 2022 by The Chronicle of Higher Education, and  Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11 (NYU Press, 2012), which was listed as one of the 50 best Hollywood books of all time by the LA Times. She is the co-editor of Arab and Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, and Belonging (Syracuse University Press, 2011), winner of the Arab American National Museum’s Evelyn Shakir Book Award, and Between the Middle East and the Americas: The Cultural Politics of Diaspora (University of Michigan Press, 2013).

Prior to her position at USC, Alsultany was an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and an Associate Professor in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan where she co-founded and directed of the Arab and Muslim American Studies (AMAS) program.

Professor Alsultany has served as an educator and consultant for Hollywood studios (Netflix, Amazon, NBC Universal) and co-authored criteria, the Obeidi-Alsultany Test, to help Hollywood improve representations of Muslims. She has published op-eds in The Hollywood Reporter, Time, and Newsweek.   

• Ph.D. Modern Thought and Literature, Stanford University, 2005
• M.A. Gender Studies and Feminist Theory, The New School for Social Research, 1998
• B.A. Women’s Studies and Political Science, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, 1995