Hisham Aidi

Hisham Aidi is a Moroccan-American political scientist, author, filmmaker, and senior lecturer in international relations at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. His research interests include cultural globalization and the political economy of race and social movements.

His book Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture on global hip hop was a 2015 winner of the American Book Award.

Biography

He was born in Tangier and grew up in its old city. His formative years also included time in Belgium and Spain. As a teenager, he would frequent Tangier's Dar Gnawa, or the House of Gnawa, where he might see guests such as the saxophonist Archie Shepp or the jazz poet Ted Joans.

When he was 15, he earned a scholarship to study in New Mexico in the United States, where he graduated from high school. He attended college in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the early 1990s and studied political theory and economics. He also worked in college radio, where he played raï music.

In 1993, he began his doctoral studies at Columbia University, where he studied under and interacted with scholars such as Robin Kelley, Mahmoud Mamdani, Edward Said, and Lisa Anderson.

Publications

Author

• Aidi, Hishaam D. (2014). Rebel music: race, empire, and the new Muslim youth culture. Islamic studies music. New York: Vintage Books, a division of Random House LLC. ISBN 978-0-307-27997-2.
• Aidi, Hisham (2009). Redeploying the state: corporatism, neoliberalism, and coalition politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-61159-7. OCLC 226357085.

Editor

• Marable, Manning; Aidi, Hisham, eds. (2009). Black routes to Islam. New York, N.Y: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-7781-6.