Sohail Daulatzai

Picture of Sohail Daulatzai
Professor, Film & Media Studies
Professor, African American Studies
Professor, Global Middle East Studies
Professor, Visual Studies
Ph.D., University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts, Department of Critical Studies
University of California, Irvine
2112 Humanities Gateway
Mail Code: 2435
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Decolonization, Black Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, Imperial culture, Race, Aesthetics, Politics
Appointments
University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLA Department of Comparative Literature, 2003-2005.
Publications
WRITINGS:

BOOKS:

With Stones In Our Hands: Writings on Muslims, Racism and Empire (with Junaid Rana), University of Minnesota, 2018.

Fifty Years of The Battle of Algiers: Past as Prologue, University of Minnesota, 2016.

Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop, Razor Step, 2014.

Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom Beyond America, University of Minnesota, 2012.

Born To Use Mics: Reading Nas’s Illmatic (with Michael Eric Dyson) Basic Civitas, 2009.


ARTICLES, ESSAYS, ETC.:

“2000: Age of Obama,” in Pieces of A Man: The Photography of Jamel Shabazz, 1980-2015, ArtVoices Art Books, 2016.

“Perpetual War and Permanent Unrest: The Battle of Algiers After 9/11,” Verso Books Blog, December 21, 2016.

“The Screen and the Streets: 50 Years of The Battle of Algiers,” Baltimore City Paper, November 22, 2016.

“The 50th Anniversary of The Battle of Algiers and the Film’s Impact on the Black Radical Imagination,” Alternet, October 18, 2016.

“How The Battle of Algiers Influenced Rage Against the Machine and L.A.’s Chicano Artist Community,” LA Weekly, October 7, 2016.

“The Afterlife of Malcolm X,” in The Islamic Monthly, May 19, 2015.

“Left,” (co-written with Junaid Rana) in Critical Ethnic Studies, vol.1, no.1, Spring 2015, pp. 39-42.

“Return of the Mecca,” in Wax Poetics, Issue 61, Spring 2015, pp. 28-32.

“The Hungry and the Hunted: A Conversation with Yasiin Bey,” in Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop, Sohail Daulatzai (Curator and Editor), Razor Step Media, 2014, pp.30-45.

“Respect the Architects: An Introduction,” in Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop, Sohail Daulatzai (Curator and Editor.), Razor Step Media, 2014, pp.6-11.

“Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop,” in Artbound, October 10, 2014.

“Fire in the Masters’ House,” part of “African American Muslims and the Black Freedom Struggle” Roundtable, in Jadaliyya, March 3, 2014.

“Are We All Muslim Now?: Assata Shakur and the Terrordome,” Al Jazeera Opinion, May 9, 2013.

“Rage Against the Machine: 20 Years of the Boomerang,” Liner Notes for Rage Against the Machine XX (20th Anniversary Edition Deluxe Box Set), Sony Legacy Recordings, November 2012.

“Respect the Architect: Malcolm X, the Elections and the Politics of Empire,” Al Jazeera Opinion, November 4, 2012.

“When Freedom Ain’t Free: Muslim Protest and the Language of the Unheard,” Counterpunch, October, 16, 2012.

“Camera As Pen, Camera As Gun: A Conversation with Hamid Naficy,” in B|Ta’arof Magazine, Fall 2012.

“Protect Ya Neck: Muslims and the Carceral Imagination in the Age of Guantánamo (Remix),” in Black Routes To Islam, Hisham Aidi and Manning Marable (eds.), Palgrave Macmillan.

"A Rebel To America: 'N.Y. State of Mind' After the Towers Fell," in Born To Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic, Sohail Daulatzai & Michael Eric Dyson (eds.), Basic Civitas.

“The Birth and Rise of L.A. Rap,” in Movement: Hip-Hop in L.A., 1980’s – Now, Exhibit Catalog, sponsored by City of Los Angeles Department Cultural Affairs, 2007.

“Protect Ya Neck: Muslims and the Carceral Imagination in the Age of Guantánamo,” in Souls, vol. 9, no. 2 (Spring 2007).

“To the East, Blackwards: Bandung Hopes, Diasporic Dreams, and Black/Muslim Encounters in Sam Greenlee’s Baghdad Blues,” in Souls, vol. 8, no. 4 (Fall 2006).

“Blood of a Slave, Heart of a King: Edward Said As B-Boy” in Amer-Asia Journal (Special Issue on the legacy of Edward Said) UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press (Spring 2005).

Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme - Liner Notes for the DVD release on Palm Pictures (dir. by. Kevin Fitzgerald, 2005).

“War At 33 1/3: Hip-Hop, the Language of the Unheard, and the Afro-Asian Atlantic” in The Vinyl Ain’t Final: Hip-Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, Dipannita Basu & Sid Lemelle (eds.), Pluto Press (2006).

“Inna Babylon: Mutiny and the Soul Rebels From the Subcontinent,” in SAMAR, no.18.

“View the World From American Eyes: Ball, Islam and Dissent in Post-Race America,” in Basketball Jones: America Above the Rim, Todd Boyd & Ken Shropshire (eds.), New York University Press (2000).

“(Re)Birth of a Nation: Islam, Cultural Politics and the Rhetoric of Empire,” Spectator: USC Journal of Film and Television Criticism, Special Issue: “Monitoring Television: Race, Representation and Nationhood,” (Fall/Winter 1998).

“Darker Than Blue, Conversations on the Game: An Interview With Dr. Todd Boyd,” Spectator: USC Journal of Film and Television Criticism, Special Issue: “Monitoring Television: Race, Representation and Nationhood,” (Fall/Winter 1998).

CREATIVE WORK:

FILM/VIDEO:

Director, "Dispossession," Music Video for Algiers, Matador Records, 2019.

Director/Producer, "Yasiin Bey on Malcolm X," for "Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop," documentary video short, 2015.

Director/Producer, "Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop," documentary video short featuring Yasiin Bey, 2014.

CURATOR

"Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop" at the William Grant Still Art Center, sponsored by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Doris Duke Foundation, and the UCHRI President’s Public Partnership in the Humanities, October 4 – November 22, 2014.

"Histories Absolved: Revolutionary Cuban Poster Art and the Muslim International," at Medina Gallery, sponsored by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Doris Duke Foundation, the UCHRI, UC Riverside Department of Ethnic Studies, November 15 – December 13, 2014.

INSTALLATION

cas·bah /'kaz bä/noun, 1. A place of confinement for the natives, yet reclaimed, Sound, Text, and Video Installation as part of Decolonize This Place Exhibition, Artists Gallery, New York City, September 18, 2016. Commissioned by #DecolonizeThisPlace and MTL+.

TEXT (PAMPHLET)

“Dissonant Text,” a provocation for cas·bah /'kaz bä/noun, as part of Decolonize This Place Exhibition, Artists Gallery, New York City, September 18, 2016 (with Kyle Goen).
Grants
UCHRI Multi-Campus Research Graduate Working Group, for “Global Middle Eastern/Transnational Media, History, and Theory,”2017-18.
Doris Duke Foundation for the "Los Angeles Islamic Arts Initiative," in support of "Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop," 2014.
Doris Duke Foundation for the Los Angeles Islamic Arts Initiative in support of "Histories Absolved: Revolutionary Cuban Poster Art and the Muslim International," 2014.
UC President’s Public Partnership in the Humanities, for “Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop,” through the UCHRI, 2014-15.
UCHRI Grant for “Histories Absolved: Revolutionary Cuban Poster Art and the Muslim International,” November, 2014.
The Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, 2005.
University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2003-2005.
Other Experience
Graduate Programs
Visual Studies
Last updated
08/16/2023