• In Fall 2026, Fawaz will be launching his podcast "Nerd from the Future." This series will feature dynamic conversations with humanities professors from across the country, as they playfully debunk popular myths about the modern university. Energizing, humorous, and packed with useful information, these conversations will cover topics including: the perceived elitism and liberal bias of university campuses; humanities education and its critics; the meaning and value of tenure; how we  respond to diversity and difference in higher education, and much more. Whether you’ve gone to college or not, wished you had or are happy you didn’t, idolize higher education or resent it, "Nerd from the Future" brings the university down to earth and into the lives of ordinary people from all walks of life.

​

• ​Fawaz is currently at work on a new book project titled How to Think Like a Multiverse: Psychedelic Lessons for Embracing a Diverse World. In it, he argues for the value of cultivating a uniquely psychedelic imagination in response to difference, diversity, and plurality—or, the simple fact that people are different from one another—as a way to reject the rising tide of xenophobia in our time. As part of this project he edited a special issue of the journal South Atlantic Quarterly on the topic of "Psychedelic Imaginaries" (April 2025). This issue includes his new essay “Tripping on Mushrooms with Edward Said: The Case for Literary Studies as Holistic Medicine.” In this article, he argues for a rethinking of humanities education as a form of collective psychedelic therapy, which uses art, literature, and media, rather than psychoactive medicines, to induce positive, long-term transformations in students’ mental wellbeing. Fawaz also recently published his article “Webbed Attachments: Psychedelic Lessons from the Multiverse” (April 2025) in the journal Theory & Event.

​

• Since Fall 2024, Fawaz has been a contributing editor to Film Quarterly, where he authors the column “Imagination Unbound.” In that time, Fawaz has published essays on the films Civil War, The Wild Robot, and Wicked as well as the globally acclaimed Last of Us video games. He is currently preparing a column on the revolutionary politics of the Star Wars hit television series Andor. As part of his work for the journal, Fawaz organized and moderated a panel on contemporary Arab American Media and Popular Culture, “Dis-Orienting Media: The Creative Vision of Arab American Cultural Production.” This panel included Maytha Alhassen (co-executive producer, Ramy), Thomas S. Dolan (ACLS Fellow, Emory University), and William Youmans (George Washington University). A full video recording of our conversation can be accessed here.

​

•  ​In June 2025, Fawaz was a teacher-in-residence at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, one of the world’s leading consciousness expansion retreats.  He lead a five-day self-guided workshop series titled "Think Like a Multiverse: Pathways to Wonder, Kinship and Radical Openness." Participants were introduced to a range of alternative models for confronting and embracing diversity, including Gloria Anzaldúa’s mestiza consciousness (a feminist theory of mixed-race identity), the indigenous kinship worldview, and cosmopolitanism and radical democracy. Each day combined open discussion of these various frameworks with a series of practical exercises including: communing with Esalen’s verdant plant-life, enacting deliberative democratic group debate, and talking to strangers. These activities strengthened participant’s skills in encountering and responding to difference with curiosity and good judgement, rather than fear, suspicion or anxiety. A daily schedule for the seminar can be found here; Fawaz's lively discussion with Sam Stern for the Esalen Podcast can be accessed here. Fawaz intends to offer this workshop again in Summer 2026, as well as a related workshop tentatively titled “On Groundlessness: Tools for Thriving in Uncertainty.”