Position Type
Faculty
Service
- Present
Links
Jadaliyya.com/Isis Nusair
Pronouns
She / Her / Hers
Biography

Isis Nusair: Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies & International Studies at Denison University. She is the co-editor with Rhoda Kanaaneh of Displaced at Home: Ethnicity and Gender Among Palestinians in Israel and translator of Ever Since I Did Not Die by Ramy Al-Asheq. Her upcoming co-edited anthology with Barbara Shaw is titled Pedagogies of Interconnectedness: Feminist-Queer Collaborative Transformation. She is completing two book manuscripts on Iraqi women refugees in Jordan and the USA, and on refugees from Syria in Germany. Isis is the co-writer/director with Laila Farah of the one-woman performance titled Weaving the Maps: Tales of Survival and Resistance. She is currently researching the gendered, racialized, and sexualized torture of Palestinians in Gaza, and the body of war in Syrian TV series post 2011. She serves on the editorial committee of the International Feminist Journal of Politics. She previously served on the editorial committee of MERIP and as a researcher on women’s human rights in the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch and at the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network. Isis is a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures and the Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa.

Degree(s)
PhD in Women's and Gender Studies, Clark University

Learning & Teaching

Courses
  • Issues in Feminism
  • Feminist Theory
  • Feminist Research Methods
  • The Making of the Modern World
  • Themes and Approaches in International Studies
  • Senior Capstone Seminar in International Studies
  • Transnational Feminism
  • Gendered Borders
  • Gender, War and Conflict
  • Women and Gender in the Middle East and North Africa
  • Gender and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa
  • Iraq Post 2003
  • Israeli and Palestinian Cinema: Feminist Perspectives
  • Gaza in Context
Academic Positions
  • Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies & International Studies, Denison University, 2005 until present.
  • Associate Professor in Women, Society and Development, Middle Eastern Studies Department, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar, 2019-20.
  • Doctoral Fellow, Saint Mary’s College, Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership, USA, 2003-05.
  • Visiting Instructor, Hampshire College, USA, Spring 2003.

Works

Publications

Research

  • Pedagogies of Interconnectedness: Feminist-Queer Collaborative Transformation (co-edited with Barbara Shaw), University of Illinois Press (forthcoming).
  • “Introduction,” (with Barbara Shaw). Pedagogies of Interconnectedness: Feminist-Queer Collaborative Transformation, University of Illinois Press (forthcoming).
  • “Weaving the Maps: Tales of Survival and Resistance.” Pedagogies of Interconnectedness: Feminist-Queer Collaborative Transformation (co-edited with Barbara Shaw), University of Illinois Press, (forthcoming).
  • “Introduction.” Ever Since I Did Not Die. London: Seagull Books, 2021: vii-xii.
  • “Gendering the Narratives of Iraqi Women Refugees in Jordan.” Feminist and Queer Theory: An Intersectional and Transnational Reader. Eds. L. Ayu Saraswati and Barbara Shaw. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020: 330-335.
  • Michelle, Rowley, Elora Halim Chowdhury, and Isis Nusair. “Refusing to Account: Toward a Pedagogy of Tectonic Instability.” Feminist Studies 39(1), 2018: 110-111.
  • “Making Feminist Sense of Torture at Abu-Ghraib.” Introduction to Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches. Eds. L. Ayu Saraswati, Barbara Shaw, and Heather Rellihan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018 and 2020.
  • Displaced at Home: Ethnicity and Gender Among Palestinians in Israel (co-edited with Rhoda Kanaaneh). Palestine: MADAR Center, 2014 (in Arabic).
  • “Negotiating Identity, Space and Place among Iraqi Women Refugees in Jordan.” Doing Research in Conflict Zones: Experiences from the Field. Eds. Dyan Mazurana, Karen Jacobsen, and Lacey A. Gale.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013: 56-77.
  • “The Cultural Costs of the 2003 US-led Invasion of Iraq: A Conversation with Art Historian Nada Shabout.” Feminist Studies, 39 (1), 2013: 119-148. full text
  • “Permanent Transients: Iraqi Women Refugees in Jordan.” Middle East Report 266, 2013: 20- 25. full text
  • “Gendering the Narratives of Three Generations of Palestinian Women in Israel.”  Displaced at Home: Ethnicity and Gender among Palestinians in Israel (co-edited with Rhoda Kanaaneh). New York: SUNY Press, 2010. 75-92. 
  • “Introduction” (with Rhoda Kanaaneh). Displaced at Home: Ethnicity and Gender among Palestinians in Israel. New York: SUNY Press, 2010. 1-18. 
  • Displaced at Home: Ethnicity and Gender among Palestinians in Israel (co-edited with Rhoda Kanaaneh). New York: SUNY Press, 2010.
  • “Gender Mainstreaming and Feminist Organizing in the Middle East and North Africa.” Women and war in the Middle East. Eds. Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Pratt. London: Zed Books, 2009. 131- 157. 
  • “Gendered, Racialized and Sexualized Torture at Abu-Ghraib.” Feminism and War: Confronting U.S. Imperialism. Eds. Robin Riley, Chandra Mohanty, Minnie Bruce Pratt. London: Zed Books, 2008.  179-193. 
  • The Integration of the Human Rights of Women from the Middle East and North Africa in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (with Rabea Naciri). Denmark: Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, 2003.
  • “Gendered Politics of Location: Generational Intersections.” Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation. Eds. Nahla Abdo and Ronit Lentin. London: Berghahn Books, 2002. 89-99. 
  • “Women and Militarization in Israel: Forgotten Letters in the Midst of Conflict.” Frontline Feminisms: Women, War, and Resistance. Eds. Marguerite Waller and Jennifer Rycenga. London: Routledge, 2001. 113-128.
Presentations

Performance

  • Weaving the Maps: Tales of Survival and Resistance (co-written and co-directed with Laila Farah). Denison University, Merrimack College, DePaul University, USA 2019; Association of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2019. 

Translation

Other

Honors & Awards
  • Robert C. Good Faculty Fellowship, Denison University, USA Spring 2024.
  • Denison Forward Excellence Award, Denison University, USA 2024.
  • Denison University Research Foundation grant, USA 2020-25, 2016-18, 2011-2013, 2007-2008.
  • Kalamazoo College, Great Lakes Colleges Association, Laura C. Harris/Denison University grants, Curriculum Institute in Women’s/Gender/Sexuality/Queer Studies (with Anne Marie Butler and Christina Holmes), USA 2024.
  • Kroc Institute Visiting Research Fellowship, University of Notre Dame Keough School of Global Affairs and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, USA fall 2022.
  • Great Lakes Colleges Association Internationalization Innovation Fund grant, Curricular Internationalization through Course Collaboration on Borders and Mobility in Greece and Turkey, USA 2019.
  • Great Lakes Colleges Association Grand Challenge grant, Faculty College on Mobility and Movement (with Amyaz Moledina and Ibra Sene), USA 2016-18.
  • Great Lakes Colleges Association grant, Curriculum Institute in Women’s/Gender/Sexuality/Queer Studies Expanding Collaboration Initiatives (with Barbara Shaw), USA 2016-18.
  • Great Lakes Colleges Association grant, International Studies Directors Expanding Collaboration Initiatives, USA 2014-2017.
  • Gentili Chair in International Studies, Denison University, USA 2012-2017.
  • Robert C. Good Faculty Fellowship, Denison University, USA 2011-2012.
  • Palestinian American Research Center Fellowship, USA 2008-09.
  • Doctoral Fellowship, Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership, Saint Mary’s College, USA 2003-05.
  • Research Associate Fellowship, Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, Mount Holyoke College, USA 2002-03.
  • Network of Interdisciplinary Women’s Studies in Europe Summer School Fellowship, Gendered Subjects - Rethinking Citizenship, Identity, and Knowledge, University of Abo, Finland 1998.
  • Southwest Institute for Research on Women and Area Studies Summer Fellowship, Global Processes, Local Lives - Comparative Approaches in Women’s and Area Studies, University of Arizona, USA 1997.
  • Women’s Travel Club Fellowship, USA 1995.
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