Patrick Higgins is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at the University of Houston. He is working on a history of U.S. imperialism in West Asia (“the Middle East”) as told primarily by those who struggled against it in the movement to liberate Palestine from colonialism and military occupation. This dissertation focuses on Palestinian and Arab revolutionary perceptions of U.S. imperialism in the Arab world from the 1940s to the 1970s, and how those perceptions shaped theory and strategy around the Palestinian cause. To address these questions, the project explores the ideas and activities of the Palestine Communist Party, the Movement of Arab Nationalists, the Nasserists, the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, and the constituent parties of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

His broader interests include colonialism and imperialism in West Asia, Arab republicanism and socialism, and internationalist practice and solidarity in Arab revolutionary movements. Additionally, he seeks to trace the impact of the diverse currents within Arab revolutions on broader traditions of anti-imperialist thought, such as dependency theory, world-systems theory, unequal exchange, and Third World Marxism in general. He holds an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from University of Texas at Austin and a BA from Wayne State University. He has shared his work as a Fellow at the 2019 Middle East Political Economy Summer Institute and has presented at the Middle East Studies Association.

Email: phiggins2@uh.edu