Salaita, Steven 1975- (Steven George Salaita)

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Salaita, Steven 1975- (Steven George Salaita)

PERSONAL:

Born 1975.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, Virginia Tech, 201 Shanks Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer and educator. University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, assistant professor of English; Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, assistant professor of English. RAWI: The Radius of Arab American Writers, executive director.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Myers Outstanding Book Award, 2007, for Anti-Arab Racism in the USA.

WRITINGS:

Anti-Arab Racism in the USA: Where It Comes from and What It Means for Politics Today, Pluto Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 2006.

The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan, foreword by Peter Gran, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY), 2006.

Arab American Literary Fictions, Cultures, and Politics, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Steven Salaita is a writer and educator at Virginia Tech, where he teaches Arab American literature and associated critical theory. In Anti-Arab Racism in the USA: Where It Comes from and What It Means for Politics Today, Salaita explores the nature of anti-Arab sentiment in contemporary America, and particularly how it has developed and spread in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Himself a second-generation Arab American, Salaita relates some of his personal experiences with such sentiments, and documents other cases elsewhere in the United States. His examination combines theory, social science, and political analysis to identify anti-Arab racism on both the political left and right. He looks at these cases and how they affect not only the individual involved, but the basic structure of American life, including legislation, culture, and social factors. He describes racism's "pernicious effects in the realms of U.S. foreign and domestic policy," commented a Reference & Research Book News critic. Salaita finds anti-Arab racism even at the root of allegedly beneficial and patriotic policies such as the controversial Patriot Act. A California Bookwatch reviewer called the book an "important key to understanding connections" between the Middle East and America. To help overcome the troubles caused by anti-Arab sentiment, Salaita stresses the "urgency of a commitment to openness and inclusion in today's political climate," noted Fred Rhodes in Middle East.

The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan contains a comparative literary analysis of Native American fiction in contrast with works by Palestinian writers. Works by Native American writers Gerald Vizenor and Winona Laduke are compared and contrasted to fiction by Palestinians Emile Habiby and Liyana Badr. Salaita concentrates on the function of the rhetoric of colonizers and settlers in America and Israel, and the opposing viewpoints generated by the native inhabitants of these lands.

In Arab American Literary Fictions, Cultures, and Politics, Salaita explores the development of the Arab American novel in a book that a writer on the Palgrave Macmillan Web site called the "first original book of Arab American literary criticism." Salaita looks at the complexity of the Arab American community as reflected in its literature, and describes a diverse cultural foundation that serves as backdrop to much Arab American writing. He offers an analysis and critique of several prominent Arab American writers, including Etel Adnan, Rabih Alameddine, Joseph Geha, and Laila Halaby. Salaita also considers the viability of establishing formal Arab American studies programs at colleges in the United States.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

California Bookwatch, October, 2006, review of Anti-Arab Racism in the USA: Where It Comes from and What It Means for Politics Today; December, 2006, review of Anti-Arab Racism in the USA.

Middle East, January, 2007, Fred Rhodes, review of Anti-Arab Racism in the USA, p. 65.

Reference & Research Book News, February, 2007, review of Anti-Arab Racism in the USA; February, 2007, review of The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan.