Randa Tawil: ‘Race in Transit: Tracing the Politics of Migration from Ottoman Syria through US Empire’

The hope, struggle, and complexity of life on the move

Third Place Books welcomes University of Washington lecturer Randa Tawil to our Ravenna store for a conversation about her new book, Race in Transit: Tracing the Politics of Migration from Ottoman Syria through US Empire. Making migrants the agents of a world history that has too often relegated them to the sidelines, Race in Transit explores the social construction of race in the early twentieth century and its impacts on Syrian migrants to the United States. Maryam S. Griffin, author of Vehicles of Decolonization: Public Transit in the Palestinian West Bank, joins in conversation.

This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

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Randa Tawil is a Palestinian-Lebanese researcher, writer, and lecturer at University of Washington in the Jackson School of International Studies. She holds a doctorate in American Studies from Yale University, and writes about migration, US empire, and the Middle East. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Margins, and Open Democracy, as well as scholarly journals.

Maryam S. Griffin is an associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at University of Washington, Bothell. Broadly, her work examines people’s ordinary movements, both physical and political, and how they confront state power in quotidian and spectacular ways. She is the author of Vehicles of Decolonization: Public Transit in the Palestinian West Bank, part of the Critical Race, Indigeneity, and Relationality book series with Temple University Press, and the co-editor of We Will Not Be Silenced: The Academic Repression of Israel’s Critics.