Notable Achievements

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala steered several student projects that were presented and recognized at a highly selective regional conference. Five Southwestern students traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, to present their research at the 2023 Undergraduate Scholars Research Conference hosted by the Western States Communication Association. This marks the third conference Bahrainwala has mentored her students through. Faculty reviewers and the conference Chair commended the students afterward and attempted to recruit them to their graduate programs. These outstanding students also swept the awards, winning three out of the four Top Paper Awards presented at this conference. Katie Love ’23 won a Top Paper Award for her paper “It’s About Damn Time: Lizzo’s Impact on Fat Identity, Fat Celebrity, and Societal Perceptions of Fatness.” Preston Willis ’23 won a Top Paper Award for his paper “Queer Icons & Queering Iconography: Lady Gaga’s Liberal Use of Religion in Born This Way.” Jenna Baird ’23 presented her paper “The Animalization of Blackness within Disney’s Animated Films: New Imagined Ways of Being Racist.” Jordan Preston ’23 won a Top Paper Award for her paper “Miley Cyrus: White Feminism and Queernormativity in Contemporary Pop Culture.” Caden Cox ’23 presented his paper “Shaping Your Type: How Dating Apps Effect and Influence Queer Relationships For Men.” This is the second time Cox was invited to present at this conference and received a Top Paper Award from this conference last year. Southwestern students Nina Mitrofanova ’23 and Alli Ziehm ’23 were also invited to present. Congratulations to these outstanding students!

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Expertise

Whiteness; anti-Muslim sentiment; precarity; feminist surveillance approaches

LB’s work examines bizarre iterations of anti-Muslim sentiment and whiteness in mediated texts. She uses critical race and feminist surveillance approaches to examine how discourses of terrorism, nationalism, and disability animate texts of marginalization. LB’s work has appeared in leading journals, including Communication, Culture and Critique, Feminist Media Studies, and Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, in addition to creative venues. She has also received top paper and research awards from the National Communication Association, Southern States Communication Association, Eastern Communication Association, and Conference on College Composition & Communication. 

Additionally, LB is involved in community education and gives recurring talks to parents at various schools in Austin about how to talk about race with their children. She also secured a national grant to organize a Muslims in Academia Symposium at Southwestern. 

LB has a PhD in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, an MA in Rhetoric from Michigan State University, and a BA in English from the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, where she grew up. 

LB’s teaching hinges on three values: 

  • Accessibility: for students with varying learning styles and expertise
  • Flexibility: through classroom routines that are explicitly structured but also explicitly open
  • Portability: with course takeaways that are applicable to students’ various home disciplines
  • LB’s work examines bizarre iterations of anti-Muslim sentiment and whiteness in mediated texts. She uses critical race and feminist surveillance approaches to examine how discourses of terrorism, nationalism, and disability animate texts of marginalization. LB’s work has appeared in leading journals, including Communication, Culture and Critique, Feminist Media Studies, and Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, in addition to creative venues. She has also received top paper and research awards from the National Communication Association, Southern States Communication Association, Eastern Communication Association, and Conference on College Composition & Communication. 

    Additionally, LB is involved in community education and gives recurring talks to parents at various schools in Austin about how to talk about race with their children. She also secured a national grant to organize a Muslims in Academia Symposium at Southwestern. 

    LB has a PhD in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, an MA in Rhetoric from Michigan State University, and a BA in English from the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, where she grew up. 

    LB’s teaching hinges on three values: 

    • Accessibility: for students with varying learning styles and expertise
    • Flexibility: through classroom routines that are explicitly structured but also explicitly open
    • Portability: with course takeaways that are applicable to students’ various home disciplines
  • Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

    Bahrainwala, L. (2020). Shithole rhetorics. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication. DOI: 10.1080/17513057.2020.1795224

    Bahrainwala, L. (2020). The web of white disengagement. Women & Language. 43 (1), 135-140, DOI: 10.34036/WL.2020.013

    Bahrainwala, L. (2020) Precarity, citizenship, and the “traditional” student. Communication Education. 69 (2), 250-260, DOI: 10.1080/03634523.2020.1723805

    Bahrainwala, L. (2019). Blind submission. Communication, Culture and Critique, August 2019. DOI: 10.1093/ccc/tcz027

    Bahrainwala, L. & O’Connor, E. (2019). Nike unveils Muslim women athletes. Feminist Media Studies, July 2019. DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2019.1620822

    Bahrainwala, L. (2017). When terrorists play ball. Communication & Sport, October 2017. DOI: 10.1177/2167479517736758

    Bahrainwala, L. (2014) “Should I take notes as you brainstorm?” Examining consultant in-session notes. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. Spring 2014 Issue

     

    Book Chapters & Other Peer-Reviewed Publications

    Bahrainwala, L. (2019) Responding to White Fragility: A Manifesta of Screams. Feral Feminisms. Special issue titled State Killing: Queer and Women of Color Manifestas against U.S. Violence and Oppression, guest edited by Annie Hill, Niq D. Johnson, and Ersula Ore. Issue 9, 21 - 25, https://feralfeminisms.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/3-Bahrainwala.pdf.

    Bahrainwala, L. (2019) Visible Allies & Muslim Inclusion. In Academic Labor Beyond the College Classroom: Working for Our Values, edited by Holly Hassel and Kirsti Cole. Routledge: New York, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429316265

    Bahrainwala, L.  (2018) Bad Archives, Bad Workers. Flow: A Critical Forum on Media and Culture, Volume 25.

    Bahrainwala, L. Terrorism, Exceptionalism, and the 2014 Miss America “Bomb”shell. Forthcoming in L. Malin (Ed.), Bombshells: Lessons in Leadership from Wearing the Crown.

    Ford, J. and Sakina Jangbar, Lamiyah Bahrainwala, Patty C. Malone, and Timothy Steffensmeier (2015) Chapter 10: Organizing a Successful Presentation. Professional Communication Skills, 7th Edition. John A. Daly and Jessica Ford (eds.)

  • Public Scholarship & Anti-Racist Resources

    Talking about Race with your Children: recurring panel for AISD schools

    Muslim Inclusion: a guide to organizing a public symposium addressing Muslim capacity for allyship and anti-Muslim racism

    White Fragility: an open-access essay exploring normalized white violence

    Follow me on Medium for discussions of desi allyship and anti-black racism

     

    In the News

    2019 Muslims in Academia Symposium: National Communication Association’s Inside Out and SU News

    Quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education

    Featured on She Speaks: Academic Muslimahs

  • Selected Presentations:

    Bahrainwala, L. Insurgent Futures: Muslim & Disabled Coalitions. Presented in absentia. Western States Communication Association. February 2020. Denver, CO.

    Bahrainwala, L. Academic Precarities. Chair and Presenter. National Communication Association. November 2019. Baltimore, MD.

    Bahrainwala, L. Shitholes: Infrastructure and Anatomy. Western States Communication Association. February 2019, Seattle, WA. 

    Bahrainwala, L. Extracting the Construct of “Home” from Domestic Labor Discourse. National Communication Association. November 2016. Philadelphia, PA. Top Four Reviewed Paper/Competitive Paper.

    Bahrainwala, L. Hide Yo’ Black with Yo’ Gay: The “EnCampment” of Antoine Dodson. Southern States Communication Association. April, 2016. Austin, TX. Top Paper. 

    Bahrainwala, L. The ‘Heroic’ Vessel: Extending Scapegoating Theory through the Malala Yousufzai Case. Eastern Communication Association. April, 2014. Providence, RI. Top Paper.