Randa Serhan
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Sociology
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Randa Serhan is a political sociologist and ethnographer. Her research interests focus on citizenship and the experiences of belonging in a myriad of spaces. She has been in the field studying community building and integration of Palestinian Americans, an ethnic and oft stigmatized minority, in New York metropolitan area. She is currently revising her manuscript to incorporate the events and heightened attention this community has received in the past 3 years. Additionally, through a BeNY multi-year grant, she has been able to work closely with students and a partner organization (Surveillance Technology Oversight Project) on a multi-sited survey gauging New Yorkers’ understanding and perceptions of street technologies that have expanded in density across the 5 boroughs. A report based on these findings will be ready in early fall.
Randa served as term associate professor in the sociology at Barnard for the past 5 years where she has a range of courses which included The Social World; Surveillance; Transnationalism, Citizenship, and Belonging; Power, Politics, and Society; Advanced Topics in Immigration and Inequality; Arab New York; Social Research Methods and advised senior theses. She is adding Immigrant New York to her roster.
Prior to joining Barnard, Randa was tenure track in sociology at American University in Washington, DC where she founded and directed Arab World Studies; a degree-granting program. She has also taught at the American University of Beirut, Columbia College, and SIPA. She received her PhD from Columbia University in Sociology under the supervision of Charles Tilly, Herbert Gans, and Gil Eyal.
Ph.D. Columbia University Department of Sociology (2009)
M.A. University of Windsor Department of Sociology, Ontario, Canada (1998)
B.A. American University of Beirut Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Beirut, Lebanon (1994)
Ethnicity and Migration
Urban Sociology
Arabs and Arab Americans
Citizenship and Nationalism
Sociological Theory
Cosmopolitanism and Refugees
Power, Politics, and Society
Surveillance
Arab New York
Transnational Social Movements, Citizenship, and Belonging
Advanced Topics: Immigration and Inequality
Classical Social Theory
Urban Lives
US Society
Political Sociology
Arab Societies
Introduction to the Arab World
Sociology of Exclusion: Racism, Classism, and Sexism
New World Research Institute Research Grant, Phase Two: Palestinian American National Research Project
National Endowment for the Humanities and American Library Association Grant, Let's Talk About It: Muslim Journeys
Villanova University Research Grant, Palestinian-American Research Center
Columbia University Department of Sociology Summer Research Grants
Asian-American Studies Association - West Assian American Section
COVID Global Solidarity Coalition
Arab American Scholars via ACCESS
Arab American Studies Association
American Sociological Association
ASA Sections: Race and Ethnicity, Urban and Community, Political Sociology/Comparative Historical, Arab American Studies
CIMEL and INTERIGHTS, Initiative to Combat Honor Crimes, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
Assimilation Suspended: The Making of Palestinian Americans, Stanford University Press, Under contract, 2021
Neither Thugs nor Terrorists: Black-Palestinian Solidarity Movements in the United States (Activists' stories), Academica Press, Under contract
Associated Press, Interviewed by Isabel Debre on the Cultural Significance of Weddings for Arab families during pandemic, Sept. 2020
Al-Jazeera, TV Interview about "Social Movements after Trump's Election," Nov. 2016