About
Dr. Sara Awartani is an Assistant Professor of American Culture, Latina/o Studies, & Arab and Muslim American Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Before joining Michigan, she was a Global American Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History and a Lecturer on Harvard’s Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, Rights.
An interdisciplinary social movement historian trained in both the Latinx studies and Arab American studies traditions, Dr. Awartani’s research and teaching are guided by two foundational questions: “When we narrate history, whose voices do we hold at our center? And what might we (re)discover about our past, present, and futures when we hold marginalized voices at our center instead?”
In her research, Dr. Awartani addresses these questions through histories of American democracy, empire, and exceptionalism. Her work helps to historicize how diasporic Puerto Ricans have long organized against U.S. colonialism and for civil rights. Geographically, her research focuses on the U.S. Midwest, particularly Puerto Rican Chicago, in order to center the “American Heartland” to civil rights histories. Methodologically, her research bridges social and cultural history with relational Latinx studies methods to better chart the ways Latinxs have organized alongside and in solidarity with other communities to demand the United States fully realize its democratic ideals and create more equitable futures.
Dr. Awartani’s first book project, Bound Together: Puerto Rican Chicago, Palestine, and the U.S. Security State (under advance contract), argues that Puerto Rican radicalism and Palestinian liberation were inextricably bound together through the rise and fall of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional; through shared organizing histories in Chicago; and, most curiously, through the late 20th century comeback of the U.S. national security state. Bound Together joins emergent scholarly imperatives insisting we must understand the history of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. as deeply rooted in shared struggles, relational coalitions, and networks of solidarity. Bound Together also adds to the well-documented history of modern U.S. conservatism as one of a rapidly expanding national security state.
Her second book, A Future Vision of Our World: The Radical Imaginations of Chicago’s Puerto Rican Student Movements draws on university archives and oral histories to document the emergence, containment, and legacy of Puerto Rican student activism at YMCA Community College, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Northeastern Illinois University during the long 1970s. It argues that we must understand the history of Chicago’s Puerto Rican student movements to be as much a story of radical political imaginations and Third World solidarities as it is a story of community control against Chicago’s deep-seated schooling inequities. A Future Vision of Our World joins scholarly imperatives to situate the Midwest to Latine history, demonstrating how rich histories of Latine student struggle extend far beyond the East and West coasts to the very heartland of the United States. It also joins the burgeoning field of Critical University Studies to insist that students are legitimate political actors and that college campuses must be understood—historically and contemporarily—as spaces for experimenting with new strategies and visions of social change.
A nationally recognized scholar of Latinx-Arab American solidarities, the Puerto Rican Radical Tradition (PRRT), and broader Latinx civil rights histories, Dr. Awartani has published in a variety of peer-reviewed and public-facing forums, including Radical History Review, Kalfou: A Comparative Ethnic Studies Journal, Society & Space, Middle East Report, CENTRO Journal, and Critical Dialogues in Latinx Studies: A Reader, among others. Her research has also received support across subfields, including the Puerto Rican Studies Association and the Arab American National Museum, with additional recognition by the Ford Foundation and the Latin American Studies Association.
As praxis, Dr. Awartani is committed to cultivating community and empathy as core civic values by producing—and supporting—historical scholarship that can foster belonging across diverse viewpoints. Her teaching challenges students to move beyond popular rhetoric they’ve unknowingly absorbed that presumes history must be “objective” or “balanced” rather than an active, evolving conversation among scholars critically evaluating and reevaluating evidence. For this reason, she trains students to see themselves as scholars already capable of producing authentic historical research and contributing to the preservation and elevation of movement histories in community with scholars, practitioners, and movement veterans.
Dr. Awartani received her Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University in 2020, and she is the recipient of the 2022 Virginia Sánchez Korrol Dissertation Award from the Puerto Rican Studies Association. She is a proud alumna of the University of Florida, where she graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in History.
Affiliations: Program in Latina/o Studies (LS)
Program in Arab and Muslim American Studies (AMAS)
National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID)
