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Publications by Soham Patel

Ethnic Studies Review, 2023

This essay addresses the cultural politics of US Empire as it appears at the site of the US–Mexic... more This essay addresses the cultural politics of US Empire as it appears at the site of the US–Mexico border. I offer a reading of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that situates the case within the ongoing violence of US settler colonialism and border imperialism. To do this, I juxtapose two texts—a fictional short film and an interview—located at the borderlands. These texts highlight not only the violence South Asians confront as a result of the global War on Terror, but also how the expansion of the US security state in the post-9/11 era has further dispossessed Indigenous communities located at the US–Mexico border. The short film Thank You, Come Again (2020) was written by, directed by, and stars South Asian American Nirav Bhakta in a story about an undocumented South Asian convenience store clerk. In this short, the clerk contends with the memories of the loss of his father at the hands of border police in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The second text, an interview with Tohono O’odham activist Ofelia Rivas, emerged from a 2006 project entitled “O’odham Against the Wall.” In this interview, Rivas situated the construction of a border wall on the Tohono O’odham land within the context of post-9/11 racial anxieties. Together, these two texts offer us a meditation not only on the state of South Asian America 100 years after US v. Thind, where race-making continues to shape the lives of the diaspora, but also the settler logics that are entangled with this historic case and the ways in which South Asians have also become complicit in settler colonial processes. However, I suggest these two texts offer the diaspora the possibility to radically rupture their complicities by forming a relational politics against the white settler nationalism that continues to target both South Asians and Indigenous communities for domination at the border and beyond.

Journal of Asian American Studies, 2003

This forum essay provides insights into how SWANA studies and critical Muslim studies opens up th... more This forum essay provides insights into how SWANA studies and critical Muslim studies opens up the possibility to contend with and think through the global war on terror and anti-Muslim racism. I consider the question of Asian/American internationalism by exploring the complex racialization of Muslims and the histories of East Asian solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. In doing so, I not only expand the scope of Asian American studies and anti-Asian violence but also offer a critique vis-à-vis SWANA and the racialization of Muslims as a way to expand our field's historical and political commitments.

Who is the Asianist?: The Politics of Representation in Asian studies, 2022

In the days following September 11, 2001, Edward Said penned an article in the Guardian, pointing... more In the days following September 11, 2001, Edward Said penned an article in the Guardian, pointing out that the United States was far from an innocent "sleeping giant" attacked by "Muslims" and "Islam, " as it had presented itself in the wake of the strikes on New York and Washington. 1 Rather, Said argued that the United States was the primary aggressor and an imperial "superpower almost constantly at war, or in some kind of conflict, all over the Islamic domains. " 2 In reminding the public of the status of the United States as a global empire, the postcolonial scholar called attention to how the "age-old religious hostility to (and ignorance of) 'Islam'" overwhelmingly shaped American foreign policy in West, South, and Central Asia. 3 In remarkable foresight, Said warned of a "long war"-since deemed the "Forever War" or the "Global War on Terror"-to come if the United States and its public intellectuals did not radically transform the imperial culture that "made imaginable, even natural, imperial vision(s) of the Arab-Muslim East as a space demanding intervention. " 4 In this account of rising anti-Muslim sentiment and its consequences for US empire in the wake of 9/11 just over twenty years ago, Said merely extended many of the main arguments of his text Orientalism. In it, Said offered a trenchant critique of racialized distinction Orientalists, and therefore also colonial powers, historically made between the "Orient" and the "Occident" to claim authority over

Book Reviews by Soham Patel

ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies, 2019

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies, 2018

Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader begins with a meditation on Puerto Rican-born artist Sofia Mald... more Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader begins with a meditation on Puerto Rican-born artist Sofia Maldonado's painting Decolonized. The editorial collective of this anthology not only meditates on their writing and messy thoughts on decolonization but also attempts to "see, smell, and feel the violence, the beauty, dissonance, and desire that undergird the formation of material and political landscapes" (ixx). The work of decolonization is messy, but the collective, in using Maldonado's piece, invites us -the readers, writers, thinkers -and our sensibilities to "imagine through this image and [their words our] own spaces of possibility and contribute [our] own ideas and energies to this critical experiment" (xi).

Papers by Soham Patel

Ethnic Studies Review, 2023

This essay addresses the cultural politics of US Empire as it appears at the site of the US–Mexic... more This essay addresses the cultural politics of US Empire as it appears at the site of the US–Mexico border. I offer a reading of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that situates the case within the ongoing violence of US settler colonialism and border imperialism. To do this, I juxtapose two texts—a fictional short film and an interview—located at the borderlands. These texts highlight not only the violence South Asians confront as a result of the global War on Terror, but also how the expansion of the US security state in the post-9/11 era has further dispossessed Indigenous communities located at the US–Mexico border. The short film Thank You, Come Again (2020) was written by, directed by, and stars South Asian American Nirav Bhakta in a story about an undocumented South Asian convenience store clerk. In this short, the clerk contends with the memories of the loss of his father at the hands of border police in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The second text, an interview with Tohono O’odham activist Ofelia Rivas, emerged from a 2006 project entitled “O’odham Against the Wall.” In this interview, Rivas situated the construction of a border wall on the Tohono O’odham land within the context of post-9/11 racial anxieties. Together, these two texts offer us a meditation not only on the state of South Asian America 100 years after US v. Thind, where race-making continues to shape the lives of the diaspora, but also the settler logics that are entangled with this historic case and the ways in which South Asians have also become complicit in settler colonial processes. However, I suggest these two texts offer the diaspora the possibility to radically rupture their complicities by forming a relational politics against the white settler nationalism that continues to target both South Asians and Indigenous communities for domination at the border and beyond.

Journal of Asian American Studies, 2003

This forum essay provides insights into how SWANA studies and critical Muslim studies opens up th... more This forum essay provides insights into how SWANA studies and critical Muslim studies opens up the possibility to contend with and think through the global war on terror and anti-Muslim racism. I consider the question of Asian/American internationalism by exploring the complex racialization of Muslims and the histories of East Asian solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. In doing so, I not only expand the scope of Asian American studies and anti-Asian violence but also offer a critique vis-à-vis SWANA and the racialization of Muslims as a way to expand our field's historical and political commitments.

Who is the Asianist?: The Politics of Representation in Asian studies, 2022

In the days following September 11, 2001, Edward Said penned an article in the Guardian, pointing... more In the days following September 11, 2001, Edward Said penned an article in the Guardian, pointing out that the United States was far from an innocent "sleeping giant" attacked by "Muslims" and "Islam, " as it had presented itself in the wake of the strikes on New York and Washington. 1 Rather, Said argued that the United States was the primary aggressor and an imperial "superpower almost constantly at war, or in some kind of conflict, all over the Islamic domains. " 2 In reminding the public of the status of the United States as a global empire, the postcolonial scholar called attention to how the "age-old religious hostility to (and ignorance of) 'Islam'" overwhelmingly shaped American foreign policy in West, South, and Central Asia. 3 In remarkable foresight, Said warned of a "long war"-since deemed the "Forever War" or the "Global War on Terror"-to come if the United States and its public intellectuals did not radically transform the imperial culture that "made imaginable, even natural, imperial vision(s) of the Arab-Muslim East as a space demanding intervention. " 4 In this account of rising anti-Muslim sentiment and its consequences for US empire in the wake of 9/11 just over twenty years ago, Said merely extended many of the main arguments of his text Orientalism. In it, Said offered a trenchant critique of racialized distinction Orientalists, and therefore also colonial powers, historically made between the "Orient" and the "Occident" to claim authority over

ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies, 2019

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies, 2018

Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader begins with a meditation on Puerto Rican-born artist Sofia Mald... more Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader begins with a meditation on Puerto Rican-born artist Sofia Maldonado's painting Decolonized. The editorial collective of this anthology not only meditates on their writing and messy thoughts on decolonization but also attempts to "see, smell, and feel the violence, the beauty, dissonance, and desire that undergird the formation of material and political landscapes" (ixx). The work of decolonization is messy, but the collective, in using Maldonado's piece, invites us -the readers, writers, thinkers -and our sensibilities to "imagine through this image and [their words our] own spaces of possibility and contribute [our] own ideas and energies to this critical experiment" (xi).