Profile

My name is Emily Regan Wills, and I am an assistant professor at the School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa. I have a PhD in politics from the New School for Social Research. My dissertation examined the politics of the Arab community of New York City. These days, I'm working both on the ways that transnational Arab communities shape politics in the Middle East, and practices of politics and transnationalism in everyday social spaces. Much of my work thinks about how gender as a structural variable and women's particular social experiences shape political thought and action.

On this journal/blog, you'll find some first thoughts and link collections on things I'm thinking about, mostly having to do either with contemporary Egyptian politics, or with the politics of the Arab community in the US, Canada, or elsewhere in diaspora. I'm also prone to doing some critical thinking about fashion, the academy, food, teaching when I'm doing it, and sometimes pop culture (because who doesn't?).

I'm a US citizen, grew up outside of Philadelphia, went to college in Connecticut, and spent the first eight years of my adulthood in Brooklyn, and immigrated to Canada to take this job in 2013. For someone who studies migration for a living, it's fun to be a migrant, even if the cultural distance is so minimal. I've got a kindergartener, a wife who works in the nonprofit sector, a cat, and a profound love of cheesy TV.

Want to contact me? The easiest way is by email, emilyreganwills at gmail. If you're a DW member, you can PM me as well, and I'll try to respond quickly (I can get distracted!). I'm on twitter intermittantly (ajnabieh) but might miss a DM there. I'm also on tumblr as ajnabieh and size16skinnyjeans, though the content there is pretty light.