Sara Abdelghany
Sara Abdelghany
MA Student
Sara Abdelghany is a Masters student in the American Studies program. She received a BSc (Hons) in Culture and Politics from Georgetown University’s branch campus in Qatar, with a double minor in Arabic and History. Her undergraduate thesis examined Muslim American organizational activism on gendered space in American mosques after 9/11. In this work, she compared Progressive Muslim activism to reform women’s spaces in American mosques to the work of mainstream Muslim organizations (ISNA, ICNA, CAIR). Sara’s thesis can be placed in the context of wider ongoing debates about religious authority in Islam, the role of women in Islam and Muslim communities, and Islam’s religious and spatial fluidity.
Sara is drawn to the fields of Muslim American Studies and Critical Muslim Studies. Her current research is concerned with Muslim representation in popular culture. She is particularly interested in how Muslims represent their experiences with identity, immigration, and religious practice and work to challenge mainstream narratives and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims in film and television (Ramy, Mo, Americanish, #1 Happy Family USA). In other words, how do Muslims “fight back” against racist and Islamophobic tropes made mainstream to American audiences and media consumers?
What are you currently reading?
Like many other readers, I have a very long (never-ending) TBR list. I’m in the middle of reading Sahar Aziz’s The Racial Muslim and Tamim Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted.
If you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life what would it be and why?
Probably some mix of 2000s Amr Diab songs, jumbled with some Abdel Halim Hafez classics. Arabic music has always been a source of comfort for me. I’ve produced my work and had my best car drives with a Amr Diab party blasting in my ears or a Abdel Halim mawaal on replay.
Tell us the most interesting thing you've learned related to American studies?
In 1788, North Carolina representatives questioned whether a Mohammaden (a Muslim) should/could run for president as they debated the Constitution’s ban on religious tests for holding office (Denise Spellberg, “Could a Muslim be President?”).
Is there one book/piece of media that inspired you to pursue the field of American Studies? If so, which one and why?
There’s so much that has motivated me, but the work inspiring my current research is Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (2006). In this documentary, scholar Jack Shaheen demonstrates how Arabs, and by extension Muslims and other Arab/Muslim-adjacent people, have been negatively represented in American film. From Aladdin to Homeland, these characterizations have cemented horrible stereotypes that have been normalized in the minds of American media audiences. Twenty years on, many of the tropes Shaheen criticized still appear in media representations of Arabs, Islam, and Muslims.