Maya Mikdashi - The Century Foundation

Maya Mikdashi is an assistant professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and a lecturer in the program in Middle East Studies at Rutgers University. She is a cofounding editor of Jadaliyya, and author of Sextarianism: Sovereignty, Secularism, and the State in Lebanon.

BEIRUT, LEBANON - NOVEMBER 16: Fatma, a Syrian woman from the city of Idlib, begs with her two children in a wealthy district of Beirut on November 16, 2013 in Beirut, Lebanon. As the war in neighboring Syria drags on for a third year, Lebanon, a country of only 4 million people, is now home to the largest number of Syrian refugees who have fled the conflict. The situation is beginning to put huge social and political strains on Lebanon as there is currently no end in sight to the war in Syria. According to the United Nations, almost two million Syrian refugees have been forced to flee their homes due to the ongoing war. Of those, around half are believed to be children. While there is no official data on the number of children and adults working on the streets Lebanon, it is estimated that it could be anywhere from 50,000 to 70,000. In wealthy districts of Beirut children and adults are viewed on nearly every block begging, looking through trash or offering pedestrians a shoe shine. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Commentary Century International

Sexuality and Citizenship, in Lebanon and the United States

ERFURT, GERMANY - JANUARY 13: Bjoern Hoecke, head of the AfD (Alternative fuer Deutschland, or Alternative for Germany) in Thuringia, speaks to supporters at the first AfD Thuringia rally since the Cologne sex attacks on January 13, 2016 in Erfurt, Germany. Hoecke, who is on the far-right wing of the AfD, is demanding an immediate closure of Germany's borders to refugees and the expulsion of foreigners with criminal records. Over 500 women have filed charges including molestation, in some cases robbery and even rape following the gathering of hundreds of North African men, many of them were from Morocco and Algeria, at Cologne's Hauptbahnhof main railway station on New Year's Eve. The incident has caused heated discussion in Germany over the government's open-door policy for refugees. In 2015 Germany registered 1.1 million new migrants and refugees. (Photo by Jens Schlueter/Getty Images)

Report Century International

The Politics of Moral Panics

Podcast Century International

Order from Ashes Podcast: Beyond Exceptionalism: On the “Middle East,” Gender, and Sexuality