Graduate Workshop with Mohamed Amjahid

Description

Acclaimed book author, journalist, and activist Mohamed Amjahid will lead a workshop for all Johns Hopkins graduate students interested in a conversation about racism, immigration, and LGBTQ+ communities in Europe, North Africa, and the U.S. This event is part of the series "Questions of Belonging. Agency, Erasure, and Visibility in Germany and the U.S." Lunch will be provided.

As a freelance investigative journalist, Mohamed Amjahid regularly covers topics such as racism and police violence in Germany, the upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa, and far-right and anti-woke politics in the U.S. and their global impact. This year, he wrote a critical piece on the history of Quran burnings in Europe for the weekly Der Spiegel and articles on patriarchal, heteronormative, anti-LGBTQ+ policies in the U.S. and Germany (for example, "'Don't Say Gay' und Ron DeSantis—Wie ein Gesetz Queers in Florida bedroht" ("'Don't Say Gay' and Ron DeSantis: How a Law Threatens Queers in Florida") for the WDR broadcasting network and "Rechte Mütter machen mobil gegen Queers und Transgender" ("Right-Wing Mothers Are Mobilizing Against Queers and Transgender People") in Der Freitag). Samples of his work will be made available during the workshop.

Amjahid is the author of Among Whites: What It Means to Be Privileged (Hanser Berlin, 2017) and Whitewash: A Guide to Antiracist Thinking (Piper, 2021), which received much popular and critical acclaim. In 2022, he published a compelling travelogue, Let's Talk about Sex, Habibi: Love and Desire from Casablanca to Cairo (Piper), which offers a nuanced portray of the region and challenges Western stereotypes and prejudices against Muslims.

This workshop is part of the event series "Questions of Belonging. Agency, Erasure, and Visibility in Germany and the U.S.," which is generously funded by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Department of History, and the programs in Race, Immigration, and Citizenship; Jewish Studies; and Women, Gender, and Sexuality.