Zainab Saleh
She/her/hers
Assistant Professor of Anthropology; Coordinator of Middle East and Islamic Studies
Roberts 202
(610) 896-1486
zsaleh@haverford.edu
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Education

B.A., Baghdad University
B.A., American University of Beirut
M.A. and Ph.D., Columbia University

Biography

Zainab Saleh, Ph.D. Sociocultural Anthropology, Columbia University, is Assistant Professor in Anthropology. Her research focuses on memory, nostalgia, belonging, subjectivity, transnational networks, imperial politics, and war and violence in Iraq and the Iraqi Diaspora. She examines the transformative impact that the US occupation of Iraq had on the  London-based Iraqi community’s social and political landscape. Her book is entitled, Return to Ruin: Iraqi Narratives of Exile and Nostalgia.

Publications

Books

2021                  Return to Ruin: Iraqi Narratives of Exile and Nostalgia. Stanford University Press.

Peer Reviewed Journals

2018                “Toppling” Saddam Hussein in London: Media, Meaning, and the Construction of an Iraqi Diasporic Community. American Anthropologist

                         120(3): 512-522.

2013                “On Iraqi Nationality: Law, Citizenship, and Exclusion.” Arab Studies Journal 21(1): 48-78.

Encyclopedia Entries

2015                The Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), Oxford Islamic Studies Online.

Edited Journals

2015                Editor of a special issue on Iraq entitled “Disinterring Iraq: Writing Silenced Histories of Nation, Nature, and State.” Arab Studies Journal 23(1): 120-123.

Book Chapters

2012              Iraq and Its Tahrir Square. In Bassam Haddad, Rosie Bsheer, and Ziad Abu-Rish,   editors, The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of an Old Order? Plato Press. Originally published on Jadaliyya, February 17, 2011.

Roundtables

2015                “Learning from the Diaspora: Towards an Anthropology of Iraqi Exile.” Arab Studies Journal 23(1): 252-255.

Reviews

2018                Interpreters of Occupation: Gender and the Politics of Belonging in an Iraqi Refugee Network, a book by Madeline Otis Campbell 2016. Anthropological Quarterly 91(1): 403-408.

2016                Iraqi Women in Denmark: Ritual Performance and Belonging in Everyday Life, a book by Marianne Holm Pedersen (2014). American Anthropologist 118 (3): 686-687.

2014                Broken Pots Broken Dreams: Working in Jingdezhen’s Porcelain Industry, a documentary by Maris Gillette (2009). Visual Anthropology Review 30 (1): 75-77.