Notable Achievements

Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala and Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Jaishikha Nautiyal received the Monograph of the Year Award for their co-authored article “Queer desi kinships: Reaching across partition.” The article appears in the Tier-1 journal QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, and articulates non-Western, and specifically South-Asian, queer praxes. The award is from the National Communication Association’s GLBTQ Division. The article can be read here.

MORE

Lamiyah (LB) Bahrainwala

Associate Professor of Communication Studies

Expertise

Anti-Muslim sentiment; feminist surveillance studies

LB’s award-winning research examines bizarre iterations of transnational anti-Muslim sentiment and anti-Blackness in mediated texts. Her articles appear in leading journals, including Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication, Culture and Critique, and Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, in addition to creative venues. Her research has been recognized with the 2022 Rhetoric Society of America Fellows’ Award and a National Communication Association Distinguished Scholarship Award, among others.

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. She is the faculty advisor to Southwestern’s Muslim Student Association, and Vice-Chair of the Feminist and Gender Studies Division for the National Communication Association.

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 explicitly structured but explicitly open classroom routines
  • Portability: or making course takeaways applicable to students’ various home disciplines
  • Biography

    LB’s award-winning research examines bizarre iterations of transnational anti-Muslim sentiment and anti-Blackness in mediated texts. Her articles appear in leading journals, including Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication, Culture and Critique, and Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, in addition to creative venues. Her research has been recognized with the 2022 Rhetoric Society of America Fellows’ Award and a National Communication Association Distinguished Scholarship Award, among others.

    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. She is the faculty advisor to Southwestern’s Muslim Student Association, and Vice-Chair of the Feminist and Gender Studies Division for the National Communication Association.

    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 explicitly structured but explicitly open classroom routines
    • Portability: or making course takeaways applicable to students’ various home disciplines
  • Publications

    Selected Publications:

    Bahrainwala, Lamiyah, and Jaishikha Nautiyal. “Queer Desi Kinships: Reaching Across Partition.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 10, no. 2 (2024): 50-69. muse.jhu.edu/article/923716.

    Bahrainwala, L. & Harris, K. L. (2023) De-whitening consent amidst COVID-19 rhetoric. Quarterly Journal of Speech. DOI: 10.1080/00335630.2023.2255636

    Bahrainwala, L. (2023) Muslim mothering and divesting from whiteness. Refiguring Motherhood Beyond Biology. edited by Kirsti Cole and Valerie Renegar. Routledge: Taylor & Francis

    Bahrainwala, L (2023). Critical surveillance studies: Living ethically in a surveillant world. Introduction to Communication Studies: Translating Communication Scholarship into Meaningful Practice. Edited by Kara Shultz & Alan Goodboy. Kendall Hunt

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

  • Works

    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 anti-Muslim racism and Muslim capacity for allyship

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

    Follow me on Medium for discussions of Muslim allyship and equity work 

     

    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

  • Presentations

    Selected Presentations:

    Bahrainwala, L. & Harris, K. L. De-Whitening Consent Amidst COVID-19 Rhetoric. National Communication Association, National Harbor, MD. November 2023. Top Paper, Critical/Cultural Studies Division

    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. 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.