Melani Mcalister
Biographic Data
| ID | 509136 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Melani Mcalister |
| GIVEN NAMES | Melani |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcalister |
| SIGNATURE | MCALISTER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | George Washington University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Trumped Again
The Extraordinary Ordinary of the War on Terror in Kenya
Promises, Then the Storm
The Cambridge History of America and the World
The fourth volume of The Cambridge History of America and the World examines the heights of American global power in the mid-twentieth century and how challenges from at home and abroad altered the United States and its role in the world. The second half of the twentieth century marked the pinnacle of American global power in economic, political, and cultural terms, but even as it reached such heights, the United States quickly faced new challeng…
Introduction
Introduction:Generations of Empire in American Studies Christopher Lee (bio) and Melani McAlister (bio) Special issues of American Quarterly are usually dedicated to understudied or neglected topics, but even a cursory glance at scholarship in recent decades quickly shows that empire is one of the most often-deployed keywords in American studies. The much-vaunted "turn to empire" that started in earnest in the 1990s has largely established the im…
Cambridge History of America and the World
Analyzing Actants
“There is a promising autre-mondialisation to be learned in retying some of the knots of ordinary multispecies living on earth.” —Donna Haraway, When Species Meet1 This statement by science studies scholar and cultural theorist Donna Haraway sounds optimistic, enthusiastic: an alter-globalization, an embrace of cross-species encounter, a sense of promise and possibility in recognizing our queer kinships with all sorts of beings. But this embrace …
Epic Encounters
Epic Encounters examines how popular culture has shaped the ways Americans define their "interests" in the Middle East. In this innovative book—now brought up-to-date to include 9/11 and the Iraq war—Melani McAlister argues that U.S. foreign policy, while grounded in material and military realities, is also developed in a cultural context. American understandings of the region are framed by narratives that draw on religious belief, news media acc…
American Evangelicals, the Changing Global Religious Environment, and Foreign Policy Activism
Since the end of the Cold War, US evangelicals have become increasingly globalized in their outlook, building from a recognition that evangelicalism, both nationally and internationally, is no longer centered on white Americans. As a result, the US evangelical community of the last 30 years has become more transnational in its outlook, and active on a variety of foreign policy issues. US evangelical activism on two issues serves to exemplify thes…
Evangelical Populist Internationalism and the Politics of Persecution
This article explores the rise of the US movement for persecuted Christians as a form of evangelical internationalism. This internationalism is built on a moral geography that highlights the ties between US evangelicals and Christians in other parts of the world, challenging the isolationist self-regard that American evangelicals are often accused of. This article argues, however, that some important components of the persecuted Christians moveme…
James Oliver Horton, 1943–2017
In October 2017, hundreds of faculty, friends, and former students gathered at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to remember James Oliver “Jim” Horton. It was a fitting gathering place. As the museum’s director, Lonnie Bunch, commented, Jim’s legacy is everywhere at the museum, from the fact that several of his former doctoral students are now curators to the foundational commitment of the museum itself: that Af…
Colloquy
Mark Bradley: Queer isn’t a word you see much in the pages of Diplomatic History or the program for SHAFR’s annual conference. Indeed, a quick lexical check of article titles since the journal began publication in 1977 for “gay,” “homosexual,” “lesbian,” “transgender,” and “queer” brings up absolutely nothing (bracketing the single title reference to the Enola Gay ). You may not be surprised. You should be. Queer history and queer studies occupy …
US Evangelicals and the Politics of Slave Redemption as Religious Freedom in Sudan
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the civil war in Sudan and the fate of Christians there became the abiding international preoccupation of US evangelicals. Framing the complex issues in Sudan as straightforward matters of religious and racial oppression, the Americans became activists, determined to change US policy toward Sudan. One of the signature activities of the Sudan movement was the practice of "slave redemption," in which activists purchase…
Have You Heard from Johannesburg
This is what transnational history looks like. Connie Field's remarkable documentary series deftly tracks the history of the global social movement to end apartheid, starting in 1948, with the institution's beginnings, and ending in the early 1990s, with its demise.1 Like the anti-apartheid movement itself, the film is based in South African realities and political struggle, but reaches out to include—to depend centrally upon—the commitments and …
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Wheaton College graduate Vera Thiessen sailed to the Belgian Congo as a missionary nurse in 1946 with high hopes for saving souls and saving lives (Figure 1). She remained in Africa for three decades, and from the late 1940s until 1976, she described her difficulties in weekly letters home. Her days at the Africa Inland Mission (AIM) medical station at Oicha, in the Kivu province near the Ugandan border, were frustrating and often exhausting. In …
A Virtual Muslim Is Something to Be
evin Gaines's presidential address offers us a rich genealogy of race and power in the last thirty years. It is both a tour de force survey of politically committed historical writing and a sober assessment of the ongoing power of a deeply conservative politics in the United States. Gaines's analysis begins from a strange twenty-first-century conjuncture. On the one hand, President Barack Obama's election stands as an auspicious mo- ment of possi…
Race Worlds
Race Worlds:Discrimination, American-Style, in the Middle East Melani McAlister (bio) America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier. By Robert Vitalis. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007. 353 pages. $29.95 (cloth). In May 1953, a group of workers at an ARAMCO oil camp in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, walked off the job. The group, which included Saudi nationals, Palestinians, and others, asked for increased benefits and better w…
Introduction
Morocco Bound
Morocco Bound is a fascinating and insightful account of the multiple ways that Americans engaged Morocco from the 1940s to the 1970s. Brian T. Edwards examines cultural and political encounters, ranging from U.S. soldiers and reporters in the North African campaign of World War II to novels, state department memos, travelers' accounts, and ethnographies. Edwards rightfully positions his study within recent transnationalist approaches to American…
“One Black Allah”
Prophecy, Politics, and the Popular
Research Article| October 01 2003 Prophecy, Politics, and the Popular: The Left Behind Series and Christian Fundamentalism's New World Order Melani McAlister Melani McAlister Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google South Atlantic Quarterly (2003) 102 (4): 773–798. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-102-4-773 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation Melani McAlister; Prophecy…
A Cultural History of the War without End
Journal Article A Cultural History of the War without End Get access Melani McAlister Melani McAlister Associate Professor of American Studies George Washington University, [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 89, Issue 2, September 2002, Pages 439–455, https://doi.org/10.2307/3092165 Published: 01 September 2002
One Black Allah
One Black Allah: The Middle East in the Cultural Politics of African American Liberation, 1955–1970 Melani McAlister (bio) The Christian church itself—again, as distinguished from some of its ministers—sanctified and rejoiced in the conquests of the flag, and encouraged, if it did not formulate, the belief that conquest, and the resulting relative well-being of the Western population, was proof of the favor of God. God had come a long way from th…
The Common Heritage of Mankind
Research Article| April 01 1996 "The Common Heritage of Mankind": Race, Nation, and Masculinity in the King Tut Exhibit Melani McAlister Melani McAlister Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Representations (1996) 54: 80–103. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928693 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permis…
One Black Allah
One Black Allah: The Middle East in the Cultural Politics of African American Liberation, 1955–1970 Melani McAlister (bio) The Christian church itself—again, as distinguished from some of its ministers—sanctified and rejoiced in the conquests of the flag, and encouraged, if it did not formulate, the belief that conquest, and the resulting relative well-being of the Western population, was proof of the favor of God. God had come a long way from th…
Introduction
American Evangelicals, the Changing Global Religious Environment, and Foreign Policy Activism
Since the end of the Cold War, US evangelicals have become increasingly globalized in their outlook, building from a recognition that evangelicalism, both nationally and internationally, is no longer centered on white Americans. As a result, the US evangelical community of the last 30 years has become more transnational in its outlook, and active on a variety of foreign policy issues. US evangelical activism on two issues serves to exemplify thes…
Evangelical Populist Internationalism and the Politics of Persecution
This article explores the rise of the US movement for persecuted Christians as a form of evangelical internationalism. This internationalism is built on a moral geography that highlights the ties between US evangelicals and Christians in other parts of the world, challenging the isolationist self-regard that American evangelicals are often accused of. This article argues, however, that some important components of the persecuted Christians moveme…
US Evangelicals and the Politics of Slave Redemption as Religious Freedom in Sudan
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the civil war in Sudan and the fate of Christians there became the abiding international preoccupation of US evangelicals. Framing the complex issues in Sudan as straightforward matters of religious and racial oppression, the Americans became activists, determined to change US policy toward Sudan. One of the signature activities of the Sudan movement was the practice of "slave redemption," in which activists purchase…
A Cultural History of the War without End
Journal Article A Cultural History of the War without End Get access Melani McAlister Melani McAlister Associate Professor of American Studies George Washington University, [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 89, Issue 2, September 2002, Pages 439–455, https://doi.org/10.2307/3092165 Published: 01 September 2002
Prophecy, Politics, and the Popular
Research Article| October 01 2003 Prophecy, Politics, and the Popular: The Left Behind Series and Christian Fundamentalism's New World Order Melani McAlister Melani McAlister Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google South Atlantic Quarterly (2003) 102 (4): 773–798. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-102-4-773 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation Melani McAlister; Prophecy…
A Virtual Muslim Is Something to Be
evin Gaines's presidential address offers us a rich genealogy of race and power in the last thirty years. It is both a tour de force survey of politically committed historical writing and a sober assessment of the ongoing power of a deeply conservative politics in the United States. Gaines's analysis begins from a strange twenty-first-century conjuncture. On the one hand, President Barack Obama's election stands as an auspicious mo- ment of possi…
Race Worlds
Race Worlds:Discrimination, American-Style, in the Middle East Melani McAlister (bio) America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier. By Robert Vitalis. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007. 353 pages. $29.95 (cloth). In May 1953, a group of workers at an ARAMCO oil camp in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, walked off the job. The group, which included Saudi nationals, Palestinians, and others, asked for increased benefits and better w…
Morocco Bound
Morocco Bound is a fascinating and insightful account of the multiple ways that Americans engaged Morocco from the 1940s to the 1970s. Brian T. Edwards examines cultural and political encounters, ranging from U.S. soldiers and reporters in the North African campaign of World War II to novels, state department memos, travelers' accounts, and ethnographies. Edwards rightfully positions his study within recent transnationalist approaches to American…
The Common Heritage of Mankind
Research Article| April 01 1996 "The Common Heritage of Mankind": Race, Nation, and Masculinity in the King Tut Exhibit Melani McAlister Melani McAlister Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Representations (1996) 54: 80–103. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928693 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permis…
The Common Heritage of Mankind
Research Article| April 01 1996 "The Common Heritage of Mankind": Race, Nation, and Masculinity in the King Tut Exhibit Melani McAlister Melani McAlister Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Representations (1996) 54: 80–103. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928693 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permis…
One Black Allah
One Black Allah: The Middle East in the Cultural Politics of African American Liberation, 1955–1970 Melani McAlister (bio) The Christian church itself—again, as distinguished from some of its ministers—sanctified and rejoiced in the conquests of the flag, and encouraged, if it did not formulate, the belief that conquest, and the resulting relative well-being of the Western population, was proof of the favor of God. God had come a long way from th…
A Cultural History of the War without End
Journal Article A Cultural History of the War without End Get access Melani McAlister Melani McAlister Associate Professor of American Studies George Washington University, [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 89, Issue 2, September 2002, Pages 439–455, https://doi.org/10.2307/3092165 Published: 01 September 2002
Prophecy, Politics, and the Popular
Research Article| October 01 2003 Prophecy, Politics, and the Popular: The Left Behind Series and Christian Fundamentalism's New World Order Melani McAlister Melani McAlister Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google South Atlantic Quarterly (2003) 102 (4): 773–798. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-102-4-773 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation Melani McAlister; Prophecy…
“One Black Allah”
Morocco Bound
Morocco Bound is a fascinating and insightful account of the multiple ways that Americans engaged Morocco from the 1940s to the 1970s. Brian T. Edwards examines cultural and political encounters, ranging from U.S. soldiers and reporters in the North African campaign of World War II to novels, state department memos, travelers' accounts, and ethnographies. Edwards rightfully positions his study within recent transnationalist approaches to American…
Race Worlds
Race Worlds:Discrimination, American-Style, in the Middle East Melani McAlister (bio) America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier. By Robert Vitalis. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007. 353 pages. $29.95 (cloth). In May 1953, a group of workers at an ARAMCO oil camp in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, walked off the job. The group, which included Saudi nationals, Palestinians, and others, asked for increased benefits and better w…
Introduction
A Virtual Muslim Is Something to Be
evin Gaines's presidential address offers us a rich genealogy of race and power in the last thirty years. It is both a tour de force survey of politically committed historical writing and a sober assessment of the ongoing power of a deeply conservative politics in the United States. Gaines's analysis begins from a strange twenty-first-century conjuncture. On the one hand, President Barack Obama's election stands as an auspicious mo- ment of possi…
Have You Heard from Johannesburg
This is what transnational history looks like. Connie Field's remarkable documentary series deftly tracks the history of the global social movement to end apartheid, starting in 1948, with the institution's beginnings, and ending in the early 1990s, with its demise.1 Like the anti-apartheid movement itself, the film is based in South African realities and political struggle, but reaches out to include—to depend centrally upon—the commitments and …
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Wheaton College graduate Vera Thiessen sailed to the Belgian Congo as a missionary nurse in 1946 with high hopes for saving souls and saving lives (Figure 1). She remained in Africa for three decades, and from the late 1940s until 1976, she described her difficulties in weekly letters home. Her days at the Africa Inland Mission (AIM) medical station at Oicha, in the Kivu province near the Ugandan border, were frustrating and often exhausting. In …
US Evangelicals and the Politics of Slave Redemption as Religious Freedom in Sudan
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the civil war in Sudan and the fate of Christians there became the abiding international preoccupation of US evangelicals. Framing the complex issues in Sudan as straightforward matters of religious and racial oppression, the Americans became activists, determined to change US policy toward Sudan. One of the signature activities of the Sudan movement was the practice of "slave redemption," in which activists purchase…
Colloquy
Mark Bradley: Queer isn’t a word you see much in the pages of Diplomatic History or the program for SHAFR’s annual conference. Indeed, a quick lexical check of article titles since the journal began publication in 1977 for “gay,” “homosexual,” “lesbian,” “transgender,” and “queer” brings up absolutely nothing (bracketing the single title reference to the Enola Gay ). You may not be surprised. You should be. Queer history and queer studies occupy …
James Oliver Horton, 1943–2017
In October 2017, hundreds of faculty, friends, and former students gathered at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to remember James Oliver “Jim” Horton. It was a fitting gathering place. As the museum’s director, Lonnie Bunch, commented, Jim’s legacy is everywhere at the museum, from the fact that several of his former doctoral students are now curators to the foundational commitment of the museum itself: that Af…
Epic Encounters
Epic Encounters examines how popular culture has shaped the ways Americans define their "interests" in the Middle East. In this innovative book—now brought up-to-date to include 9/11 and the Iraq war—Melani McAlister argues that U.S. foreign policy, while grounded in material and military realities, is also developed in a cultural context. American understandings of the region are framed by narratives that draw on religious belief, news media acc…
American Evangelicals, the Changing Global Religious Environment, and Foreign Policy Activism
Since the end of the Cold War, US evangelicals have become increasingly globalized in their outlook, building from a recognition that evangelicalism, both nationally and internationally, is no longer centered on white Americans. As a result, the US evangelical community of the last 30 years has become more transnational in its outlook, and active on a variety of foreign policy issues. US evangelical activism on two issues serves to exemplify thes…
Evangelical Populist Internationalism and the Politics of Persecution
This article explores the rise of the US movement for persecuted Christians as a form of evangelical internationalism. This internationalism is built on a moral geography that highlights the ties between US evangelicals and Christians in other parts of the world, challenging the isolationist self-regard that American evangelicals are often accused of. This article argues, however, that some important components of the persecuted Christians moveme…
Cambridge History of America and the World
Analyzing Actants
“There is a promising autre-mondialisation to be learned in retying some of the knots of ordinary multispecies living on earth.” —Donna Haraway, When Species Meet1 This statement by science studies scholar and cultural theorist Donna Haraway sounds optimistic, enthusiastic: an alter-globalization, an embrace of cross-species encounter, a sense of promise and possibility in recognizing our queer kinships with all sorts of beings. But this embrace …
The Cambridge History of America and the World
The fourth volume of The Cambridge History of America and the World examines the heights of American global power in the mid-twentieth century and how challenges from at home and abroad altered the United States and its role in the world. The second half of the twentieth century marked the pinnacle of American global power in economic, political, and cultural terms, but even as it reached such heights, the United States quickly faced new challeng…
Introduction
Introduction:Generations of Empire in American Studies Christopher Lee (bio) and Melani McAlister (bio) Special issues of American Quarterly are usually dedicated to understudied or neglected topics, but even a cursory glance at scholarship in recent decades quickly shows that empire is one of the most often-deployed keywords in American studies. The much-vaunted "turn to empire" that started in earnest in the 1990s has largely established the im…
Promises, Then the Storm
Trumped Again
The Extraordinary Ordinary of the War on Terror in Kenya
Sociology (17 works) · History (14 works) · Political science (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Art (9 works) · History (8 works) · Race, History, and American Society (8 works) · Law (7 works)