Maha Nassar

Maha Nassar is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona's School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies. Her work focuses on 20th-century Palestinian history, cultural identity formation, and transnational intellectual networks. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (2006) and has conducted fieldwork in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine. Nassar’s research emphasizes Palestinian cultural producers’ role in shaping transnational Arab and third-world solidarity beyond Israeli state boundaries.

Her award-winning monograph Brothers Apart (2017) examines Palestinian cultural strategies in Israel during the 1950s–60s. Current projects include analyses of Palestinian women’s resistance to Israeli narratives, challenges to Orientalist stereotypes in media, and Palestinian engagement with Black liberation movements. Nassar is a 2018 Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project and serves as a Policy Member of Al-Shabaka.

Her research interests bridge historical analysis with contemporary issues, addressing themes like statelessness, diaspora identity, gender equality discourses, and decolonial practices. Nassar’s work consistently interrogates how marginalized communities construct identities through cultural practices, grassroots organizing, and transnational solidarity networks.