The Canadian Studies Program is pleased to announce AJ Kurdi as the recipient of an Edward E. Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellowship for Summer 2024.
AJ is a PhD student in the Department of Ethnic Studies, with a designated emphasis in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. His dissertation research is a comparative study on different forms of ethnic minority queer organizing in Budapest, Montreal, and Paris, and how they shape the priorities and political orientations of mainstream LGBTQI movements, laws and public policies in Europe and North America. Historically, this movement has largely represented the interests of white, middle-class and up gay men, but most are now more explicitly taking an "intersectional" approach.
AJ's Hildebrand Fellowship will support his travel to Montreal this month to attend the Fierté Montréal pride festival. There, he will conduct interviews to probe the relationship between certain queer Arab activist organizations and the broader LGBTQI movement in Quebec. While Canada presents as a largely progressive country, there nevertheless remain signficant divisions between mainstream groups and minority organizations.
AJ holds degrees from the Central European University, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem. His previous work focuses broadly on queer social movement debates and transnational networks in West Asia, and the various forms of discrimination faced by queer Romani people in Central and Eastern Europe. He has published in the Journal of Israeli History, Critical Romani Studies, and International Journal of Discrimination and the Law