About
An interdisciplinary historian, Dr. Sara Awartani's research, publications, and teaching focuses on twentieth-century U.S. social movements, interracial solidarities, policing, and American global power, with special attention to Latinx and Arab American radicalisms. Her first book project, Solidarities of Liberation, Visions of Empire: Puerto Rico, Palestine, and American Global Power (under contract with University of North Carolina Press) chronicles a globally expansive story of Palestine liberation, Puerto Rican radicalism, and the United States' efforts to weaponize and police those freedom dreams.
Dr. Awartani's research appears in a variety of peer-reviewed and public-facing forums, including Radical History Review, Kalfou: A Comparative Ethnic Studies Journal, Society & Space, Middle East Report, and Critical Dialogues in Latinx Studies: A Reader. Her research has received support across subfields, including the Puerto Rican Studies Association and the Arab American National Museum, with additional recognition by the Ford Foundation and the Latin American Studies Association. She was an inaugural member of MERIP, NACLA, and Jadaliyya's "Latin East" project: a cross-regional and cross-platform collaboration committed to exploring the new and longstanding ties between Latin America, the Middle East, and their respective diasporas in the United States.
Before joining Michigan, Dr. Awartani was a Global American Studies postdoctoral fellow at Harvard's Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History and a Lecturer on Harvard's Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, Rights. She is a proud alumna of the University of Florida, where she graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in History (Go Gators).
Affiliations: Program in Latina/o Studies (LS)
Program in Arab and Muslim American Studies (AMAS)
National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID)
