Personal Info
- Country of residence: United States
Information
Steven Salaita (born 1975) is an American scholar, author, and public speaker who previously served as Edward W. Said, Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut. He became the center of controversy when the University of Illinois withdrew its conditional offer to serve as a professor of American Indian studies after drawing attention to his tweets on the Gaza-Israel conflict in 2014. His tweets were seen as criticism of the Israeli government by some, and as expressing anti-Semitism by others.
As a result of his outspoken criticism of the university's handling of his case, Haaretz wrote that Salita created a "celebrity lecturing" for his speech to "silence dissent."
Early life and education
Salita was born in Bluefield, West Virginia on September 15, 1975, to immigrant parents. His mother was born and raised in Nicaragua by Palestinian parents who grew up in Beit Jala. He describes his ethnic background as both Jordanian and Palestinian. He says in one of the interviews that Salita's father was from Madaba, Jordan. His maternal grandmother lost her home in Ein Karim outside Jerusalem in 1948.
Salita received his studies in political science from Radford University in 1997, and MA in English from Radford in 1999. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma in Native American Studies with a literature focus.
career path
After completing his Ph.D., Salita became an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, where he taught American and ethnic American literature until 2006. He was then appointed as an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, taking a tenure three years later. In addition to teaching English language courses, Salita has written on the topics of immigration, indigenous peoples, dislocation, ethnicity, and multiculturalism. Michael Hiltzick of the Los Angeles Times refers to him as "a respected scholar of American Indian studies and Israeli-Arab relations."
Salita won the 2007 Gustavus Myers Distinguished Prize for the book Anti-Arab Racism in the USA: Where It Comes From and What Politics Means Today. The Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Intolerance and Human Rights recognized Salita's book as one of "expanding our understanding of the root causes of intolerance and the range of options we humans have in constructing alternative ways of sharing power". Duke University professor Miriam Cook described the book as "a stark analysis of anti-Arab racism, from neoconservatives to liberals, rooted in the colonial past of American settlers, permeating every corner of our lives, and Stephen Salita takes the reader into the crisis of Arab-American societies in the wake of September 11. With such passion, this clear account of the dangers of US imperialism paints a dark picture of the Bush administration's agenda not only in the Arab world but also for people of color at home."
Sinan Anton, associate professor at New York University, reviewed Salita's book Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan, published in 2006. He found the author's comparative approach to Palestinian and Native American writers and the impact of politics on the production of Refreshing. He found the most powerful chapter devoted to Salita's personal experience of spending the summer of 2002 in the Shatila refugee camp where he introduced indigenous studies to the population and developed perspectives on how "alternative narratives could broaden the consciousness of colonial preachers". Anton notes that Salita has limited his scope to Palestinian prose and literature limited to English translations.
In 2013, Salita was invited to do an interview with the ACE (American Indian Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). There were 80 applicants and Salita was one of six invited to the campus. It was a unanimous selection of faculty members to fill this position. Professor Robert Allen Warrior, ACE Director, writes that Salita has "compelling new contributions to the intellectual project of a critique of the concept of faith, which is...the core of what has made us an international leader in our field", and that Salita's contribution will allow the Department to "engage with the broader implications of comparative affiliation." Inside and outside US imperialism and US militarism in North America and the Pacific to include the Middle East. Al-Mohareb worked with Salita previously, as a member of the PhD committee.
Dr. Reginald Alston, Associate Counsel, wrote of Salita's nomination: "The unique character of his scholarship at the intersection of American Indian, Palestinian and Palestinian American experiences provides a rare opportunity to add an esoteric perspective on non-affiliation with our on-campus cultural studies programs....I I endorse Dr. Salita's presentation of an emphatic position because of the clear intellectual value that his study and background will bring to our campus, and his presence will elevate ACE internationally, and convey Illinois' commitment to maintaining a ground-breaking academic program in the history and social and political complexities of American Indian culture." Then Salita presented the position of the insured; The university subsequently withdrew its offer, as detailed below.
In July 2015 Salita announced that he had accepted President Edward W. Said's offer of American studies at the American University of Beirut, and would begin his assignment in the fall of 2015. Salita's position at Beirut University was not renewed due to some inconsistencies in his employment. The university stated that they were "procedural irregularities".
In 2017, Salita announced that he was leaving academia because no institution would hire him to work full time.
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Achievements and Awards
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