Isra Ali

  
  • Lecturer
  • Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey
  • Twitter: @IYAli

I have a brand new PhD in Media Studies with a certificate in Women's and Gender Studies from Rutgers University (Jan 2014). My dissertation examines media (print, tv + photo journalism + documentaries) produced about Afghan women by women traveling from North America and Western Europe to Afghanistan in the era of the War on Terror (while considering histories of women's participation in colonial knowledge production about 'the Muslim world'). I think about the ways that the logics, mechanisms, and infrastructure of the War on Terror intersect with gender, sexuality, race, class and citizenship in the war zone to inform contemporary knowledge production about 'the Muslim world.' I also look at how feminists in the U.S. and Afghanistan partner or position themselves in opposition to one another. I look at how these different factions use social/online media in this period to argue for or against militarism and occupation as a means of engendering the liberation of Afghan women, and how those debates are informed by the journalism produced about Afghan women.

I've been teaching media studies courses at Rutgers for several years including Intro, History of Media, Gender, Race, Class + Sexuality, and International Media.

I live in Jersey City, NJ, but I was born in London, grew up in Bahrain, and went to high school and college in Kansas.