Faculty & Staff

Dr. Atiya Husain is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Richmond. She holds a Ph.D and MA in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a BA from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor in Sociology and Near Eastern Studies. At bottom, her research is about understanding the concept of race and what it helps to accomplish. Her recent work has addressed the contemporary significance of how "race" emerged historically based on notions of religion as a way to organize and categorize people for various purposes. In the same vein, her book manuscript examines how the post-9/11 attention on the figure of the Muslim reinforces and shapes the basic contours of the US racial hierarchy, specifically blackness and whiteness. Additional major research projects examine race and crime more closely through an analysis of the FBI's most wanted fugitive and terrorist lists, post-9/11 state violence, and social movements. Supported in part by fellowships and grants from the Ford Foundation, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the US Department of Education, her work can be found in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Sociology Compass, and Sociology of Religion.