American Univesity of Beirut

Skip Navigation LinksHome > Faculty of Arts and Sciences > Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies > Media Studies > Media Infrastructures > Program

Program

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Media Infrastructures in the Middle East

American Universit​y of Beirut

January 9 to 11, 2020​​​​


Conference Program

​Thursday January 9, 2020​             (West Hall, Auditorium B)​​

 

3.30pm: Opening and welcome
            Nadia El Cheikh Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences, AUB           
            Nabil Dajani, Professor of Media Studies, AUB         
 ​
4pm: Keynote address
         “Generators & the Production of Technical Systems"
          Brian Larkin
          Barnard College, Columbia University

5.30pm: Welcome reception (Second floor West Hall)        
 


​Friday January 10, 2020​   (West Hall, Auditorium B)             ​


9am – 11am, Panel 1: Visual Culture and War 
Chair: Zeina Tarraf, AUB

  • “Circulation, Infrastructure, and Concealment: The Multiple Vectors of Media Events" Hatim El-Hibri, George Mason University.  
  • “Digital Imaginaries: Precarity and the 'Good Life' in the Visual Culture of Tyre " - Reem Joudi, American University of Beirut.                                                                                        
  • “Humanitarianism and the Life of Cinema Infrastructures" - Viviane Saglier, McGill University.     
  • “Online Revolutionary Animation of the Arab Uprisings and Its Impact on the Arab Mediascape " – Omar Sayfo, Utrecht University.  

11 – 11.30: Coffee break


11.30am – 1.00pm, Panel 2: Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance 
Chair: Sara Mourad, AUB     
                                                                                                                                
  • ​​“You are on camera, smile for the police state" - Maya El Helou, University of Toronto.          ​
  • “Social media infrastructures in Occupied Palestine" - TBA
  • "'This Is Lebanon' : Theorizing Pressure in the Lebanese Pressure Group" - Heather Jaber, University of Pennsylvania.                                                                                                                    

1.00 – 2.00pm: Lunch​


2.00 – 3.45, Panel 3: Sovereignty and the State
Chair: Josh Carney, AUB

  • “Inmate Generated Footage and Modern State Warfare in Lebanon" - Chafic Najem, Stockholm University.                                                                                                                                                 
  • “When A Dish Is Not A Dish: Preliminary Notes on Infrastructure and Affect" - Marwan Kraidy, University of Pennsylvania.                                                                                                                    
  • “Politics, Policing, and Policies at Film Festivals in Turkey"- Melis Behlil, Kadir Has University
  • “Memorializing Media Use: reflexivity, spectacle and power in the commemoration of Turkey's failed coup attempt" - John McManus, Qatar University.                                                                                                         ​                                                                
4.00pm – 5.30​pm, Panel 4: Media Borders
Chair: May Farah, AUB
                                     
  • “Black Skin, White Cameras:​ African Asylum-Seekers in Israeli Documentary Film" - Greg Burris, American University of Beirut.  
  • “Ecologies of Risk: Mapping the Ethical Imperatives of geo spatial intelligence in the Mediterranean Sea" – Monika Halkort, Lebanese American University.     
  • “Bollywood needs the sound of Arabic: Soft power, media flows and transnational cultural economics of dubbed Hindi content in the Middle East" - Sreya Mitra, American University of Sharjah​​​.                                                                                                                                                                

​Saturday January 11, 2020   (West Hall, Auditorium B)​


9.00 – 11.00, Panel 5: Industries
Chair: Greg Burris, AUB

  • “Combatting Projects of 'Infiltration' & 'Sedition': The Post-2009 Securitization of Media Content in Iran" - Nahid Siamdoust, Yale University​.                                
  • “Cinema and the Infrastructures of Secularism" – Baran Germen, Colorado College.               
  • “Behind the Scene/Seen: Media's Demand of an Anthropological Political Economy" - Mariz Kelada, Brown University.               
  • “Advertising Infrastructures in the Middle East" - Ilhem Allagui, Northwestern University in Qatar. ​   ​  
  • “The Structures of the Kurdish Media System in Northern Syria/Rojava" - Kerem Schanberger, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich​​.

11.00-11.30: Coffee Break


11.30 –1.00pm: Panel 6: Material Histories
Chair: Blake Atwood, AUB

  • “Historicizing Digital Media in the Middle East: Geopolitical Aesthetics of Imperial Infrastructures and Neoliberal Symptoms" - Ozgun Eylul Iscen, Duke University.                   
  • ​“An Egyptian Enterprise, for Egyptians: The Locality of Egypt's First Arabic Newspapers, 1870-1885" - N.A. Mansour, Princeton University.  
  • “Radio Yerevan, TRT, and the Sonic Insurgencies of the Early Cold War" - Nicholas Glastonbury, CUNY Graduate Center.

1.00 – 2.30: Lunch​

​

2.30 – 4.30: Closing Roundtable: Live from the Street: The October Revolution in the Media  (West Hall, Bathish Auditorium)
Moderator: Sara Mourad, Media Studies Program​​​

  • ​Joelle Boutros, Legal Agenda

  • Jad Ghosn, New TV

  • Jean Kassir, Megaphone

  • Diana Moukalled, Daraj Media 

(This session will be in Arabic with simultaneous translation)​


7:30pm: Closing dinner 


​

Contact Us

For various questions, please try contacting us via social media first!
read more

Privacy Statement

We take data privacy seriously and adhere to all applicable data privacy laws and regulations.
read more

Copyright and Disclaimer

Written permission is needed to copy or disseminate all or part of the materials on the AUB website.
read more

Title IX, Non-Discrimination, and Anti-Discriminatory Harassment

AUB is committed to providing a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment to all members of its community.
read more