Ariel­la Aïsha Azoulay is a film­mak­er, cura­tor, and pro­fes­sor at Brown Uni­ver­si­ty, where she teach­es polit­i­cal the­o­ry from an anti-colo­nial per­spec­tive, using pho­tog­ra­phy and mate­r­i­al cul­ture. She is the author of many books, includ­ing Poten­tial His­to­ry: Unlearn­ing Impe­ri­al­ism (Ver­so Books, 2019), Civ­il Imag­i­na­tion: The Polit­i­cal Ontol­ogy of Pho­tog­ra­phy (Ver­so Books, 2012), The Civ­il Con­tract of Pho­tog­ra­phy (Zone Books, 2008), and From Pales­tine to Israel: A Pho­to­graph­ic Record of Destruc­tion and State For­ma­tion, 1947 – 1950 (Plu­to Press, 2011). Her film tril­o­gy, Unlearn­ing Impe­r­i­al Plun­der, con­sists of Un-Doc­u­ment­ed: Unlearn­ing Impe­r­i­al Plun­der I (2019), The World Like a Jew­el in the Hand (2023), and Alf lay­la wa lay­la (One Thou­sand and One Nights, 2025).

Azoulay wrote her first chil­dren’s book, Gold­en Threads, as an invi­ta­tion to her grand­chil­dren, who were born when the Jew­ish Mus­lim world was already destroyed, to inhab­it this ances­tral world, and believe with oth­ers that it can be restored. Gold­en Threads draws from research Azoulay con­duct­ed for The Jew­el­ers of the Ummah: A Poten­tial His­to­ry of the Jew­ish Mus­lim World (Ver­so, 2024). She lives in Paw­tuck­et, Rhode Island.