CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS ​

Eid Mohamed is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Comparative Literature at the Doha Institute. His recent publications include a sole-authored book on American imagery in the Middle East, a co-edited volume on the 2011 Egyptian uprising and its aftermath, a co-edited compilation on Arab education after the Arab Spring, and a co-edited volume on the negotiation of identity through language and literature. He is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled, From Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park which examines the ways in which cultural identity and collective action have been transformed by the global uncertainty of both 9/11 and the Arab Spring.

​Dr. Mohamed is currently leading three major international and multi-institutional research projects: De-Centering American Studies: Understanding America from Abroad analyzes of circuits, gaps and sites of resistance within the digital humanities by considering the rhetorical production and representation of "America" within the Middle Eastern world and its diaspora. Computational Study of Culture: Cultural Analytics for Modern Arab and Islamic Studies similarly harnesses cultural analytic approaches to digitize machine-readable Arabic-language texts from the 19th century to today; while Transcultural Identities: Solidaristic Action and Contemporary Arab Social Movements archives contemporary Arab print and digital media to analyze the interplay of politics, religion, and culture in shaping Arabs' search for more stable governing models. 

Melani McAlister is Associate Professor of American Studies and International Affairs at George Washington University. She is the author of Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and US Interests in the Middle East (Univ. of California, 2005, o. 2001), and co-editor, with R. Marie Griffith, of Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States (2008). She has recently completed The Kingdom of God Has No Borders: A Global History of American Evangelicals, an expansive study of evangelical internationalism since 1960, forthcoming in 2018 from Oxford University Press. She is also co-editor of volume 4 of the forthcoming Cambridge History of America and the World.​

McAlister has published in a broad range of academic and general interest publications, including the New York Times and Washington Post. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Princeton University’s Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton’s Center for the Study of Religion, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication. She currently serves on the editorial board of Modern American History and as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. She is recipient of an NEH fellowship in 2017-18, and is beginning work on a book tentatively titled: “’Let Biafra Live!’: Religion, Global Media, and Transnational Humanitarianism during Nigeria’s Civil War, 1967-1970.”

CONFERENCE COORDINATOR ​

Thomas Dolan is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Studies at George Washington University, focusing on Middle Eastern diaspora and race. A recent recipient of the Calouste Gulbenkian Global Excellence Scholarship, Thomas' research has also been supported by the Institute for Middle East Studies, Dr. Philip M. Kayal Fund for Arab American Research, Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, Bentley Historical Library Bordin-Gillette Fellowship, Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom and the Armenian General Benevolent Union. He is an alumnus of NYU, the New School's Institute for Critical Social Inquiry, and Yale University. Thomas is currently a visiting researcher at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies under the Transcultural Identities project funded by QNRF NPRP. He has also recently published in Huffington Post, Muftah, and HowlRound. Prior to returning to graduate school, Thomas performed and produced work at Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Town Hall, Studio 54, among others.

ASSISTANT COORDINATOR

​Zainab Abu Alrob is an MA candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Her research focuses on migration and Syrian refugees flows.  Zainab holds an honours BA in Politics and Governance from Ryerson University. While completing her studies, Zainab worked abroad in Turkey where she was involved in a variety of different projects that provided support for orphans and Syrian refugees.  Her work in Turkey sparked her interest in the role border politics, nationalism and citizenship played in the formation of the EU-Turkey refugee deal. Zainab is currently a visiting researcher at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies under the Transcultural Identities project funded by QNRF NPRP .