Being Arab in Brazil
An interview with Waïl Hassan and a roundup of new publications
2/20/20251 min read
Welcome to the first edition of our fifth volume!
Over the last four years it's been a joy to share a wide variety of publications, interviews, reviews and events with the Latin America and Caribbean Islamic Studies Association (LACISA) network. As we enter our fifth year, we are continuing the conversation with a great lineup of research and writing!
First, we have an interview with Waïl Hassan, author of Arab Brazil: Fictions of Ternary Orientalism. Discussing his book, Hassan shares details about his careful interrogation of popular fiction and mass media melodramas, which undergird his insightful theorization of what “ternary Orientalism” is and how it functions in Brazil.
Second, we share a roundup of recent relevant publications in The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Race, edited by Zain Abdullah. Then, a selection of even more publications of interest to the LACISA community, on the Palestinian diaspora in Chile, the political integration of Muslim minorities in Guyana and Suriname, and the paths of Islam in Latin America and Spain.
Finally, we invite you to contribute your own research to an ongoing special collection of articles with the International Journal of Latin American Religions.
As readers will note, this edition of the newsletter includes content in English, Spanish, and Arabic. We remain committed to honoring the multi-lingual nature of our research network and hope to be adding Persian translations of some of our content in the near future. If you -- or someone you know -- is interested in helping us with translations (in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Arabic, Persian), please reach out and we can work together on translating the archive of publications on the LACISA website.
Thank you once more, for being part of the LACISA community and for contributing your own perspectives to our ongoing work. There are many more stories to be told and we look forward to being able to read and share them with you in the years to come.
Adelante,
Ken Chitwood
LACISA Senior Editor