Azza Basarudin
Azza Basarudin received a Ph.D. in Women鈥檚 and Gender Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Before joining 色中色 in Fall 2020, Dr. Basarudin held teaching, postdoctoral, and research fellowship positions at Harvard Divinity School, Syracuse University, California State University, Northridge, UCLA, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia, and the American University in Cairo.
Her first book, Humanizing the Sacred: Sisters in Islam and the Struggle for Gender Justice in Malaysia, was published by the University of Washington Press in 2016. In this ethnographic study, she examines Muslim women鈥檚 activist practices to reconfigure Islamic legal codes from a feminist perspective to advocate for equality-oriented reform in the Muslim family, such as increasing the legal marital age for girls and obtaining unilateral rights to divorce. She is currently working on her second book that explores the queer and trans lives of Malay Muslims in contemporary urban Malaysia.
The University of California Humanities Research Institute, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the National Science Foundation, among others, have supported Dr. Basarudin鈥檚 research. Her writings have appeared in journals such as Feminist Studies, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, Feminist Formations, Al-Raida: The Pioneer Journal, Scholar and Feminist Online, and Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture.
Dr. Basarudin is the Co-Director for the Global Middle East Studies Minor Program, Affiliated Faculty with the South Asian Studies Minor Program, and Associate Faculty with the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies. Along with her 色中色 feminist colleagues, Dr. Basarudin co-curated the Transnational Feminist Solidarities Conference in April 2024. She is the Faculty Commissioner elect for the President's Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW, 2023-2026). She was a member of the College of Liberal Arts Strategic Planning (CLASP) Team to assess and implement greater equity in the college (2021-2024).
In 2023, Dr. Basarudin received the鈥疉dvancement of Women Award (AOWA) in recognition of her demonstrated commitment to advancing women鈥檚 rights through campus service, community service, educational advancement, and scholarly achievements. In 2024, she was awarded the Overseas Faculty Development Seminar Award, 鈥淏etween Political and Climate Change in Southeast Asia鈥 by the Council of American Overseas Research Center, Inya Institute in Myanmar, and Center for Khmer Studies in Cambodia.
Dr. Basarudin will be on sabbatical leave in Spring 2026.
Dr. Basarudin鈥檚 research interests are social and legal regimes of sex, gender, and sexuality; critical studies of postcolonial and feminist theories; Islam and gender; feminist ethnography; transnational feminist food pathways; theories of intimacy and communalism; transnational women鈥檚 and feminist movements in the Muslim world, with a special focus on Southeast Asia.
WGSS 300: Feminist Theory
WGSS 301: Feminist Research Methods
WGSS 318: Fierce Struggles: U.S Women of Color History and Thought
WGSS 330: Feminist Politics of Rage
WGSS 339 (I/ST339): Transnational Feminisms: Contexts, Conflicts, and Solidarities
WGSS 401: Bodies and Borders: Feminism and Globalization
WGSS 490: Gender and Feminist Organizing in a Transnational World
WGSS 495: Senior Capstone Seminar
WGSS 496: Internship: Feminist Community Praxis
Book
Basarudin, Azza. . Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016.
Peer-Reviewed Articles and Chapters
Forthcoming: Basarudin, Azza. 鈥樷淥wning鈥 Women: Misogynist Rampage, Declining Rights, and Savage Violence in Global Antifeminist Backlash.鈥 Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 46.3.
Forthcoming: Basarudin, Azza. 鈥淗idup Untuk Makan Atau Makan Untuk Hidup?鈥 (Live to Eat or Eat to Live?): Gendered Feeding Practices in a Malaysian Food Archive.鈥 In Transnational Culinaria: Women of Color and Feminist Food Studies, eds. Janaka Lewis, Farha Ternikar, and Stephanie Y. Evans. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press (SUNY Press).
Forthcoming: Basarudin, Azza, and Tina Beyene. 鈥淔eminist Dispatch: Confronting Global Antifeminist Backlash.鈥 Al-Raida: The Pioneer Journal.
Basarudin, Azza. 鈥淎n Archive of Rage.鈥 Scholar and Feminist Online Issue 20.1 | Fall 2024 (Special Issue: Rage, Struggle, Freedom).
Basarudin, Azza, and Tina Beyene. 鈥淓mbodied Precarity: Feminist Politics, Laboring Bodies of Color, and the Neoliberal University.鈥 In Decolonial Feminist Genealogies and Futures, eds. Annie Isabel Fukushima and K. Melchor Quick Hall. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2025.
Basarudin, Azza. 鈥淩eluctant Belonging: Tudung (Headscarf), Communalism, and Muslim Politics in Urban Malaysia鈥 Feminist Formations, Vol. 35, Issue 2, (Summer 2023): 198-225.
Basarudin, Azza, Tina Beyene, Elora Halim Chowdhury, Sharmila Lodhia, Catherine Sameh, and Khanum Shaikh. 鈥淲hat Hungers Call Us Home? Engaging Autotheory Through Food.鈥 Feminist Studies, Vol 49, Issues 2 and 3: 442-475.
Basarudin, Azza. 鈥淢ak Nyahs and the Subject of Rights: Perversity, Piety, and Citizenship in Malaysia.鈥 In Feminist Studies: An Introductory Reader, eds Hemangini Gupta, Kelly Sharron, Carly Thomsen, and Abraham Weil. New York, NY: Routledge, 2025.
Basarudin, Azza, Sherine Hafez, Catherine Sameh, and Khanum Shaikh. 鈥淐ountering Epistemologies of Islamophobia: Critical Feminist Pedagogies,鈥 Scholar and Feminist Online, Issue 17.1, July 2021.
Basarudin, Azza, and Khanum Shaikh. 鈥淭he Contours of Speaking Out: Gender, State Security, and Muslim Women鈥檚 Empowerment.鈥 Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 19, no. 1 (2020): 107-135.
Basarudin, Azza. 鈥淭he Shape of a Life.鈥 Departures in Critical Qualitative Research 1 June 2019; 8 (2): 24鈥34.
Basarudin, Azza. 鈥淭he Other Within Muslim Rights Warrior in Malaysia.鈥 Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture, vol. 2, no. 1, Jan. 2017.
Basarudin, Azza and Himika Bhattacharya, 鈥淢editations on Friendship: Politics of Feminist Solidarity in Ethnography鈥 In Dissident Friendships: Feminism, Imperialism, and Transnational Solidarity, eds. Elora Halim Chowdhury and Liz Philipose. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016.
