Arab American Histories: Queer Explorations of Power and Difference in an Era of Repression

Presented by the UC Davis Middle East/South Asia Studies, the Department of History and the California History-Social Science Project

Reception at 5 p.m. and scholar talk and conversation from 5:30-7 p.m.

Charlotte Karem Albrecht from the University of Michigan will present her research in gender and sexuality in Arab American immigration history and lead a conversation on the challenges and significance of ethnic studies scholarship in out current moment.

This talk explores Arab American immigration history, illustrating how Arab immigrants have been variably
positioned as incorporable into the U.S. body politic or as threats to the state. Drawing on her book, Possible
Histories, Karem Albrecht examines the history of Syrian peddling to show how ideas about sexuality and gender formed the basis of Arab Americans’ indeterminate racial status. Syrians came to the U.S. as early as the 1870s and worked as peddlers, enabling them to acquire wealth quickly and transforming the Syrian American family. At the height of this profession’s popularity, transient labor was associated with sexual non-normativity, and with homosexuality specifically. Karem Albrecht uses queer affective and grounded imaginative approaches to history to show how immigrant peddlers and their networks of labor and care appeared in interconnected discourses about American modernity, sexuality, gender, class, and race. The conversation will feature reflections on teaching Arab American history in a moment when ethnic studies, queer studies, and academic inquiry are under threat.

This event is the third in The Middle East in Historical Context speaker series, organized and sponsored by the Department of History, the Middle East/South Asia Studies Program, and the California History Social-Science Project at UC Davis. Karem Albrecht’s talk is also part of a month-long commemoration of Arab American Heritage Month at UC Davis.

Open to campus and community.