Naazneen Diwan

Naazneen Diwan is a poet, storyteller, performer, social justice educator of Arabic and Gender Studies, and lover of bicycling. She has organized with South Asians for Justice, LA, INCITE! Women, Gender Non-Conforming, and Trans people of Color Against Violence, and is an advocate/ally for the Palestinian liberation struggle and struggles for justice and dignity for immigrants. She received a PhD in Gender Studies from UCLA and has most recently taught classes at Calstate LA. She’s a transnational Activist-Scholar who builds dynamic, vibrant community wherever she goes: from working as a translator at an underground human rights publication in Damascus, Syria, to co-founding a transnational feminist, 10-day convening in Berlin, Germany. She’s worked in Gujarat, India since 2011, facilitating creative arts and healing workshops with Muslim women, called Kalaashakti, and studying the 2002 genocide against Muslims. Currently, she is working on a book collaboration with her artist father called 99 Names, featuring her poetry and his ink sketches, and is co-creating a transformative education project called Bab al-Nafs which weaves together intellectual and spiritual wisdom to orient the spiritually colonized towards freedom.