Amira Jarmakani

Amira Jarmakani, she/they, is professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and affiliated faculty with the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies at San Diego State University. Her most recent book, An Imperialist Love Story: Desert Romances and the War on Terror (NYU Press 2015), explores the crucial role of desire in understanding how the war on terror works and how it perseveres. She also authored Imagining Arab Womanhood: The Cultural Mythology of Veils, Harems, and Belly Dancers in the U.S. (Palgrave Macmillan 2008), which won the National Women’s Studies Association Gloria E. Anzaldúa book prize. She is co-editor, with Pauline Homsi Vinson and Louise Cainkar, of Sajjilu Arab American: A Reader in SWANA Studies (Syracuse University Press, 2022) and a series advisor for the Critical Arab American Studies Series with Syracuse University Press. She has served as president of the Arab American Studies Association (2018-2022), board member for the Association of Middle East Women’s Studies (2017-2019) and assistant editor for the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (2011-2013). She is an organizer/member with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition and the Palestinian Feminist Collective.