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 an Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity. 

Alsultany is the author of Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion (New York University Press, 2022) and Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11 (New York University Press, 2012), and co-editor of Arab and Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, and Belonging (Syracuse University Press, 2011) and Between the Middle East and the Americas: The Cultural Politics of Diaspora (University of Michigan Press, 2013).

She is the guest curator of the Arab American National Museum’s online exhibit, Reclaiming Identity: Dismantling Arab Stereotypes (www.arabstereotypes.org). In 2017, she collaborated with colleagues at other universities to create the #IslamophobiaIsRacism Online Syllabus. She teaches courses on media representations, U.S. cultural and racial politics, and Arab and Muslim Americans.

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 is a leading expert on the history of representations of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. media. She has served as a consultant for Hollywood studios on how to better represent Muslim characters. She co-authored the Obeidi-Alsultany Test to help Hollywood improve representations of Muslims and has a podcast, “Muslims As Seen on TV.” She has published op-eds in The Washington Post, Newsweek, and the Chicago Reporter.

• 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