Ahlam Muhtaseb challenges her students to take learning and activism beyond the classroom

Ahlam Muhtaseb is a professor of communication and media studies in the College of Arts and Letters and the director of the Center for the Study of Muslim & Arab Worlds. As a strong advocate for social justice, Muhtaseb inspires her students to take action to seek positive change in their communities. Her work as an activist-scholar began early in her academic career. Her fieldwork in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine led her to co-produce and co-direct her award-winning documentary "1948: Creation & Catastrophe." The film, co-produced and co-directed with Andy Trimlett, focuses on the year 1948 and its catastrophic consequences on the Palestinian nation. The documentary has won the Jerusalem International Film Festival’s 2019 Special Jury Award in the Feature Documentary category and 2019 Rebuilding Alliance "Story Teller" Award.

Muhtaseb is the recipient of the 2020 CSUSB Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activities Award and was one of the 2019-20 Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Faculty Mentor Awardees. Her teaching strategy brings a holistic learning experience to the classroom and challenges her students to think critically about their world outside the textbook. She is currently working on a new documentary about three young Muslims who were murdered in Chapel Hill in 2015, and the state of racism and Islamophobia in the United States.