• Settler colonialism and indigenous studies
• post 9/11 racial formations, militarization and war
• critical refugee studies
• transnational feminisms
• Palestine

1208 W Nevada St
M/C 142
Urbana IL 61801

Lila Sharif is assistant professor of Asian AmericanStudies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She teaches courses onrace, empire, militarization, settler colonialism, food and culture. Sharifearned a dual Ph.D. in Sociology and Ethnic Studies from the University ofCalifornia, San Diego in 2014. She is currently completing a book manuscriptthat analyzes the intersections between the politics of consumption, indigenoussurvival, neoliberalism, gender and race. She traces the circulation of olivecommodities from Palestine to the United States in order to ask: How isPalestine made palatable to Western consumers and what is masked/revealed inthis process? She is the first Palestinian American to earn a Ph.D. in EthnicStudies to date.