CHRISTA SALAMANDRA
Department of Anthropology
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
[email protected]
EDUCATION
D. Phil, University of Oxford, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, 2001
M.A., Department of Anthropology, New York University, 1992
B.A., magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, New York University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, 1986
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Professor and Deputy Chair, Department of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York, from 2017
Faculty Member, Doctoral Program in Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York, from December 2010
Director, Masters Program in Middle Eastern Studies, Graduate Center, City University of New York, from July 2022
Interim Director, Lehman Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies, January 2018-August 2018
Visiting Professor, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden, May 2011-2012
Associate Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York. September 2008-2017
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York, 2004-2008
Visiting Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2001-2002.
Research Associate, University of Oxford, 1999-2001. Project: Connection and Imagery: Transnational Cultural Flows and the Arab Gulf, Economic and Social Research Council Transnational Communities Programme.
Sociological and anthropological theory and methodology (tutorials), University of Oxford, 1991-1992, 1995-1996, urban anthropology, 1998.
FELLOWSHIPS
Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Research Fellow, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 2018-2019.
Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor of Sociology, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon, 2002-2004.
Visiting Fellow, New Islamic Public Sphere Programme, University of Copenhagen, March and April 2010.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
(In progress) Waiting for Light: Syrian Television Drama Production in the Satellite Era. Book manuscript under contract with Indiana University Press.
Middle Eastern Television Drama: Politics, Aesthetics, Practices. Co-edited with Nour Halabi. Routledge, 2023.
Syria from Reform to Revolt: Culture, Society and Religion. Co-edited with Leif Stenberg, eds. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015. In its second printing.
Arabic translation of “Introduction: A Legacy of Raised Expectations” published on World Institute for Studieswebsite: http://alaalam.org/ar/translations-ar/item/476-635110217.
Excerpt of “Introduction: A Legacy of Raised Expectations,” reprinted in Arab Media and Society, 23, 2017. http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=1019.
A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Peer Reviewed Articles
(In Press) “The Dictator’s New Clothes: On Syrian Drama,” Coauthored with Nour Halabi, Allegra Lab.
“Vulnerability, Empathy, and Allyship in Syria: Reflections of an Ethnographer,” Syrian Studies Journal 16(1), 2025.
“Introduction: Politics in and of Middle Eastern Fictional Television,” co-authored with Nour Halabi. Special Issue of Middle East Critique, 28(2), Summer 2019.
“The Past Continuous: Memory and History in Syrian Social Drama,” in Politics in and of Middle Eastern Fictional Television, Special Issue of Middle East Critique, 28(2), Summer 2019.
“Sectarianism in Syria: Anthropological Reflections,” Middle East Critique, 22(3), 2013. Arabic translation published December 9, 2016 on World Institute for Studies website:
http://alaalam.org/ar/index.php/translations-ar/item/447-الطائفيّة-في-سوريا-تأمُّلات-أنثروبولوجيّة
“The Muhannad Effect: Media Panic, Melodrama and the Arab Female Gaze,” Anthropological Quarterly, 85(1), 2012.
“Spotlight on the Bashar al-Asad Era: The Television Drama Outpouring,” Middle East Critique, 20(2), 2011.
“Creative Compromise: Syrian Television Makers between Secularism and Islamism,” Contemporary Islam, 2(3), 2008. Reprinted in Anna Piela, ed, Islam and The Media Vol. 1. London: Routledge, 2016.
“Television and the Ethnographic Endeavor: The Case of Syrian Drama,” Transnational Broadcasting Studies, 14 (Spring/Summer 2005).
“London’s Arab Media and the Construction of Arabness,” Transnational Broadcasting Studies, 10, Spring 2003. http://tbsjournal.arabmediasociety.com/Archives/Spring03/salamandra.html
“Globalisation and Cultural Mediation: The Construction of Arabia in London,” Global Networks, 2(4), 2002.
"Moustache Hairs Lost: Ramadan Television Serials and the Construction of Identity in Damascus, Syria," Visual Anthropology, 10(2-4), 1998. Reprinted in Toby Miller, ed., Television, Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies, Vol. 2. London: Routledge, 2003.
Journal Special Issues
Politics in and of Middle Eastern Fictional Television, co-edited with Nour Halabi. Special Issue of Middle East Critique, 28(2), Summer 2019.
Book Chapters “Past Continuous: Memory and History in Syrian Social Drama.” In Christa Salamandra and Nour Halabi, eds., Middle Eastern Television Drama: Politics, Aesthetics, Practices. Routledge, 2023.
“Aesthetic Arabism: The Syrian Musalsal Beyond Borders.” In Joe Khalil, Gholam Khiabany, Bilge Yesil, and Tourya Guayybess, eds., Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East. Hoboken: Wiley, 2023.
“Introduction—The Musalsal: Drama, Arab Style.” In Hadeel Eltayeb and Pamela Erskine-Loftus, eds. The World is Watching Musalsalat. Edinburgh: Akkadia Press, 2023.
“A Mirror for Fieldworkers.” In Judith Scheele and Andrew Shryock, eds. The Scandal of Continuity: Problems of Duration and Form in Anthropology. Indiana University Press, 2019.
“Ambivalent Islam: Religion in Syrian Television Drama.” In Karin van Nieuwkerk, Mark Levine, and Martin Stokes, eds. Islam and Popular Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016.
With Leif Stenberg, “Introduction: A Legacy of Raised Expectations.” In Christa Salamandra and Leif Stenberg, eds. Syria from Reform to Revolt: Culture, Society and Religion. Syracuse University Press, 2015. Arabic translation published February 11, 2017 on World Institute for Studies website: http://alaalam.org/ar/translations-ar/item/476-635110217.
“Syria’s Drama Outpouring between Complicity and Critique.” In Christa Salamandra and Leif Stenberg, eds., Syria from Reform to Revolt: Culture, Society and Religion. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015. Excerpt published in Arab Media and Society, 23 (Fall/Winter), 2017: http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=1019. Arabic translation published May 8, 2017 on World Institute for Studies website: http://alaalam.org/ar/translations-ar/item/521-623080517.
“Nabil Maleh: Syria’s Leopard.” In Josef Gugler, ed. Ten Arab Directors: Political Dissent and Social Critique. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015.
“Arab Television Drama Production and the Islamic Public Sphere.” In Christiane Gruber and Sune Haugbølle, eds., Rhetoric of the Image: Visual Culture in Muslim Contexts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
“Syrian Television Drama: A National Industry in a in a Pan-Arab Mediascape.” In Tourya Guaaybess, ed., National Broadcasting Policy in Arab Countries. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
“The New Old City: Nostalgia, Representation and Gentrification in Historic Damascus.” In Vinayak Bharne, ed., The Emerging Asian City: Concomitant Urbanities & Urbanisms. London: Routledge, 2012.
“Arab Television Drama Production in the Satellite Era.” In Diana I. Rios and Mari Castaneda, eds., Soap Operas and Telenovelas in the Digital Age: Global Industries, Hybrid Content, and New Audiences. New York: Peter Lang, 2011.
“Consumption, Display, and Gender.” In Samir Khalaf and Roseanne Khalaf, eds., Arab Culture and Society. London: Saqi Books, 2010. Reprinted from Christa Salamandra, A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria, pp. 48-64. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
“Through the Back Door: Syrian Television Makers between Secularism and Islamization.” In Kai Hafez ed., Arab Media: Power and Weakness. New York: Continuum, 2008.
“La television à l’heure du feuilleton.” In Baudoiun Dupret, Zouhair Ghazzal, Youssef Courbage and Mohammed al-Dbyat, eds., La Syrie au present: Reflets d’une société. Paris: Actes Sud, 2007.
“Chastity Capital: Hierarchy and Distinction in Damascus.” In Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon, eds., Sexuality in the Arab World. London: Saqi Books, 2006.
“Cultural Construction, the Gulf, and Arab London.” In Paul Dresch and James Piscatori, eds., Monarchies and Nations: Globalisation and Identity in the Arab States of the Gulf. London: I. B. Tauris, 2005.
"Consuming Damascus: Public Culture and the Construction of Social Identity." In Walter Armbrust, ed., Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Non-Peer Reviewed Articles“New Texts Out Now: Christ Salamandra and Nour Halabi, Middle Eastern Television Drama (interview and book excerpt), Jadaliyya, December 11, 2023. https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/45441/Christa-Salamandra-and-Nour-Halabi,-eds,-Middle-Eastern-Television-Drama-Politics,-Aesthetics,-Practices-New-Texts-Out-Now
“Waiting: The Neighborhood that Eats Its Children,” Drama Critics 3 (May): 52-63, 2017. (al-Intizar: al-Hara alati Ta’kul Ibna’iha. Nuqad Drama 3 (Ayar): 52-63.) http://drama-critics.com/?p=987
“New Texts Out Now: Christ Salamandra and Leif Stenberg, Syria from Reform to Revolt, vol. 2,” (interview and book excerpt), Jadaliyya, November 10, 2016.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/25475/new-texts-out-now_christa-salamandra-and-leif-sten
“Syria’s Leopard, Part 1,” Jadaliyya, March 8, 2016.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/24025/syria’s-leopard-(part-1)
Arabic translation published February 25, 2017:
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/26111/فهد-سوريا_-الجزء-الأول
“Syria’s Leopard, Part 2,” Jadaliyya, March 9, 2016.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/24026/syria’s-leopard-(part-2)
Arabic translation published February 27, 2017:
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/26112/فهد-سوريا_-الجزء-الثاني
“Reflections on Not Writing about the Syrian Conflict,” Jadaliyya, February 2014.http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/16290/reflections-on-not-writing-about-the-syrian-confli
“Reflections on Sectarianism in Syria,” Anthropology News, November 2012.http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/06/20/reflections-on-sectarianism-in-syria/
“Prelude to an Uprising: Syrian Fictional Television and Socio-Political Critique,” Jadaliyya, May 2012. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/5578/prelude-to-an-uprising_syrian-fictional-television.
“Al-Intizar,” catalogue entry, Fribourg International Film Festival, 2010.
“Dramatizing Damascus: The Cultural Politics of Arab Television Production in the Satellite Era.” Islam Lecture Series, University of Copenhagen, April 2010. http://islam.ku.dk/lectures/Salamandra140410.pdf/.
Poetry translation, “Hole in the Head” and “The Last Time,” by Rima Buaini. Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arabic Literature, Vol. 31, Spring 2008.
“Damascus: New Dynamics in and about an Old City,” Anthropology News, January 2007.
Guest Editor, ArteNews Quarterly Feature: “Ambivalent Nostalgias.” October 2007. http://www.arteeast.dreamhosters.com/pages/artenews/nostalgias/
“Nostalgia Commodified: Old Damascus,” ArteNews Quarterly Feature, October 2007. http://www.arteeast.dreamhosters.com/pages/artenews/nostalgias/
Translation from the Arabic, with Suhail Shadoud, “Canons of the Past,” by Najib Nusair, October 2007. http://www.arteeast.dreamhosters.com/pages/artenews/nostalgias/
Encyclopedia Entries“Cities: Urban Movement: Arab States (excepting North Africa).” In Suad Joseph, ed. Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, Vol. 6. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-women-and-islamic-cultures/cities-urban-movement-arab-states-excepting-north-africa-EWICCOM_00391a?s.num=1&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopedia-of-women-and-islamic-cultures&s.q=Salamandra
“Space: Female Space.” In Suad Joseph, ed. Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, Vol. 4. Leiden: Brill, 2007. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-women-and-islamic-cultures/space-female-space-egypt-iraq-jordan-lebanon-and-palestine-EWICCOM_0281a?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopedia-of-women-and-islamic-cultures&s.q=Salamandra
Commissioned Book Reviewscooke, miriam, Dissident Syria (2007). Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Studies, 5(1) 2009.
Jonathan Holt Shannon, Among the Jasmine Trees: Music and Modernity in Contemporary Syria (2006). H-Net Levant, October 2008.
https://networks.h-net.org/node/7801/reviews/8278/salamandra-shannon-among-jasmine-trees-music-and-modernity-contemporary
Annika Rabo. A Shop of One’s Own: Independence and Reputation among Traders in Aleppo (2005). Syrian Studies Association Newsletter 13(1), 2007.
Nezar Alsayyad, Irene A. Bierman and Nasser Rabbat, eds. Making Cairo Medieval (2005). International Journal of Third World Studies, 17, 2006.
Naomi Sakr, ed., Women and Media in the Middle East: Power through Self-Expression (2003). Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 2(3), Fall 2006.
Scholarly Weblog Postings
“An Ethnography of Syrian Television Drama,” Les carnets de l’Ifpo, 10 January 2011.
http://ifpo.hypotheses.org/617
“Television and Its Discontents,” Material World, 27 August 2007. http://www.materialworldblog.com/2007/08/television-and-its-discontents/
OpinionLetter to the Editor, “Must-See TV,” New York Times, Arts & Leisure, November 14, 2010, p.4. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/arts/design/14almail-MUSTSEETV_LETTERS.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=search&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0
Unpublished Report
Transnationalism and Gulf Arab London. 2001. Project report for: Connection and Imagery: Transnational Cultural Flows and the Arab Gulf, Economic and Social Research Council Transnational Communities Program, 1999-2001.
Exhibition Catalogs
The World is Watching Musalsalaat. The Media Majlis Museum, Northwestern University in Qatar. Contributing Curator, January 18,-May 11, 2023. https://mediamajlis.northwestern.edu/en/whats-on/exhibitions-programs/the-world-is-watching-musalsalat-2023-01-17-2023-05-11
GRANTS AND AWARDS
PRESENTATIONS
Keynote Addresses
“Intersecting Sectarianisms in Syria,” conference, “Sectarian Materialities,” Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, May-June 2017.
“The Past Progressive: History and Belonging in Syrian Television Drama,” conference, “Media in Muslim Contexts: Inventing and Reinventing Identities,” Institute for the Study of Islamic Civilization, The Aga Khan University, London, November 2016.
“The Dark Aesthetic: Portents of the Syrian Conflict in Popular and Cinematic Culture,” conference, Nordic Society for Middle East Conference, Lund, Sweden, September 2013.
“Syrian Television Drama: An Enduring Tradition of Social Realism,” International PhD and Research School, “Arab TV Fiction and Entertainment Industries,”
Danish Institute in Damascus, Syria, November 2010.
“Spotlight on the Bashar al-Asad Era,” conference, “Bashar al-Asad's First Decade: A Period of Transition for Syria,” Lund University, Sweden, April 2010.
Invited Presentations
“Representation, Reciprocity, and Vulnerability: Empathy, Allyship, and Ethnographic Fieldwork in Syria,” workshop, “Trends in Syrian Studies,” Villanova University, November 2023.
“Aesthetic Arabism,” book conversation, The Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, CUNY Graduate Center, October 2023.
“Syrian Drama as Default Archive,” workshop, “Re-collections: Images Beyond the Archive,” Center for Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, September 2022.
“The Right to the Ruins: Fictional Media Production ant the Syrian Conflict,” seminar series “Art and Power in the Middle East: Past and Present,” NYU Abu Dhabi Institute, November 2020.
“City, Chaos, and Conflict in Syrian Television Drama,” Near Eastern Studies Brown Bag Series, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, February 2020.
“Explaining Sectarianism across Space and Time,” workshop, “Sectarianism in the Wake of the Arab Revolts” project conclusion, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, January 2019.
“Syria’s Critical Media,” workshop, “Mediatized Diasporas,” presentation: Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University, Denmark, January 2019.
Seminar, “Serially Haphazard: Syrian Television Drama in the Satellite Era,” Department of Mass Communication, American University of Sharjah, Unites Arab Emirates, November 2018.
“Past Continuous: Memory and History in Syrian Social Drama,” conference, “History and Society on TV in the Middle East,” Department of History, University of Maryland, College Park, April 2017.
“The Drama of Damascus,” symposium, “Syria’s Art and Architecture: A Multicultural History,” The Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, October 2016.
“The Muhannad Effect: Syrian Television’s Dark Aesthetic,” Museum Lecture Series, Department of History, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, June 2016.
“It’s Not about the Data: A Mirror for Fieldworkers,” Festschrift for Paul Dresch, presentation, All Souls College, Oxford, September 2015.
“In Pasolini’s Footsteps: Syrian Social Drama,” Near Eastern Studies Brown Bag Series, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, September 2014.
“Nostalgia Revisited,” conference, “The Future of Nostalgia in the Middle East,” New Islamic Public Sphere Programme, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, June 2014.
“Roads to Damascus: Urban Imaginings in State-Sanctioned and Dissident Cultural Production,” workshop, “The Arab Spring: The Preludes,” Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar, April 2013.
“Syria’s Drama Outpouring: Cultural Production between Complicity and Critique,” workshop, “Islam and Popular Culture,” Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NOW), Amsterdam, March 2013.
“The Dark Aesthetic: Social Realist Television and Dissident Culture in Syria,” seminar, Kevorkian Center for Middle Eastern Studies, New York University, November 2012.
“Dramatizing Damascus: Syrian Television Creators between Complicity and Critique,” Public Space Seminar, CUNY Graduate Center, November 2012.
“From No Hope to Freedom and Nothing But: The Subversive Potential of Syrian Television Drama,” workshop, “Changing Media Ecologies in the Arab World: Before and After the Jasmine Revolution,” Section for Middle Eastern Studies, Department of Oriental Languages and the Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, March 2012.
“Prelude to an Uprising: Syrian Fictional Television and Socio-Political Critique,” Public Lecture, Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar, March 2012
“Ethnographic Approaches to Arab Cultural Production: The Case of Syrian Television Drama,” Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, September 2011.
“Depicting Damascus: An Ethnography of Arab Television Drama,” workshop, “New Trends in Middle Eastern Popular Culture,” Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, May 2011.
“Ethnographic Approaches to Syrian Television Drama,” seminar series, “Perspectives and Areas of Research in the Near East,” Institut français du Proche-Orient, Damascus, December 2010.
“Dramatizing Damascus: The Cultural Politics of Arab Television Production in the Satellite Era,” Islam Lecture Series, University of Copenhagen, April 2010.
“Arab Television Drama Production in the Satellite Era,” symposium, “Information Evolution in the Arab World,” Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, March 22, 2010.
Fribourg International Film Festival, Forum@FIFF 2010: TV Series in the Middle East, invited presentation, “Al-Intizar,” Fribourg, Switzerland, March 2010.
“Bizir Night: Drama Series from Turkey and Syria,” Middle East and Middle East American Center, CUNY Graduate Center, October 2008.
“Arab Television Drama Production and the Islamic Public Sphere,” conference, “Rhetoric of the Image: Visual Culture in Political Islam,” University of Copenhagen, March 2009.
“Dramatic Secularism: Globalization, Islamization, and Syrian Television,” Council on Middle Eastern Studies, MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, March 2008.
“Among the Producers: Syrian Television Makers and Discourses of Distinction,” CUNY Graduate Center Ph.D. Program in Anthropology Colloquium, March 2006
“Television and the Ethnographic Endeavor: The Case of Syrian Television,” Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, CUNY Graduate Center, October 2005.
“Global Media and the Arab World,” conference, Identities Versus Globalization?: Cultural and Political Dimensions of Globalization,” Heinrich Böll Foundation, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany, January 2005.
“The Arab Media in London and the Construction of Arabness,” conference, “New Communications Media in the Arab World: A Revolution in Everyday Life,” House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany, June 2004.
“Authenticity, Identity, and Syrian Television,” Center for Behavioral Research, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, May 2004
“Authenticity Commodified: Transnational Markets and Arab Locals,” Fifth Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Mediterranean Programme, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence, Italy, March 2004.
“Ethnographic Approaches to Syrian TV Drama,” conference, Beirut Institute for Media Arts, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon, March 2004.
“Chastity Capital: Display, Distinction and Hierarchy in Damascus,” conference, “Sexuality in the Arab World,” American University of Beirut, Lebanon, December 2003.
“London’s Arab Media,” conference, Beirut Institute for Media Arts, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon, October 2002.
“That Color Looks Great on You”: Consumption and Distinction among Women in Damascus,” Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon, April 2003.
“Cultural Mediators and the Construction of Arabia in London,” conference, “Connections and Identities: Transformations in the Arab Gulf,” University of Oxford, September 2001.
“Ramadan Television in Damascus,” workshop, “Islam on Television,” Carsten Niebuhr Institute, University of Copenhagen, December 1999.
“Dramatizing Damascus,” workshop, “Popular Culture in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Georgetown University, May 1998.
"Consuming the City: The Construction of Social Identity in Damascus," “Ethnicity and Identity Seminar Series,” Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, February 1997.
“The Devil You Know: Transnationalism and Gulf Arab London,” conference, “The Middle East in London,” School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, July 2001.
Conference Papers
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, presentation, “Television (Still) Matters: Drama in and of the Middle East,” November 2023.
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, presentation, “Television Matters,” New Orleans, November 2019.
Society for Cinema and Media Studies, presentation: “An Exilic Industry: Syrian Television Drama,” Toronto, March 2018.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, presentation, “The Present Pasts: History and Belonging in Syrian Mass Cultural Production.” Washington, DC, November 2017.
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, presentation, “The Critical Politics and Somber Poetics of Syrian Television Drama.” Chicago, March 2017.
Conference, "Thinking Serially: Repetition, Continuation, and Adaptation,” presentation, “The Cultural Politics of Arab Television Drama Production,” Department of Comparative Literature, The Graduate Center, CUNY, April 2015.
American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, presentation, “Syrian Drama’s Dark Aesthetic: A Visual Language of Critique,” November 2014.
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, presentation, “Prelude to an Uprising: Syrian Fictional Television and Socio-Political Critique,” Denver, November 2012.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, presentation, “The Persistence of the Real: Syrian Social Drama Creators in an Age of Commercial Nostalgia,” Montreal, November 2011.
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, paper, “The Muhannad Effect: Melodrama, Media Panic and the Arab Female Gaze,” November 2009.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper, “Myths of Departure: (Im)mobility, Informal Settlements, and Arab Television Drama,” November 2008.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper, “Dramatic Difference: Inequality in Syrian Television,” November 2007.
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, paper, “Of Slings and Arrows: Syrian Television Producers between Secularism and Islamism,” November 2007.
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, paper, “Contentious Cosmopolitanism: Syrian Television Makers and Discourses of Distinction,”
March 2007.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper “Contentious Cosmopolitanism: Syrian Television Makers and Discourses of Distinction,”
November 2006.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper “Dramatic Secularism: Syrian TV Drama,” November 2005.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper “(Re)constructing Arabness: London’s Arab Media,” November 2003.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper “Transnationalism and Cultural Mediation: Constructing Arabia in London,” November 2002.
Conference, Globalisation and the Arab Gulf, paper “Globalisation and Gulf Arab London,” Exeter University, July 2001.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper “Consuming Ramadan: Popular Culture and Identity Construction in Damascus,” December 1998.
Fifth Annual International Festival of Ethnographic Film, paper "Broadcasting Old Damascus: Television and the Construction of Identity in Damascus, Syria," University of Kent, November 1996.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, invited paper, "The Days and Nights of Old Damascus: The Construction of Identity through Public Culture,” Washington, DC, November 1995."
Middle East Studies Association of North America Annual Meeting, invited paper, "The Days and Nights of Old Damascus: The Construction of Identity through Public Culture," Washington, DC, December 1995.
The American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, "From Couscous to Moussaka: Middle Eastern Restaurants and the Creation of a Middle Eastern Cuisine," Philadelphia, PA, October 1989.
Conference Organization
Organizer, Lehman Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies Annual Conference 2018, “Artist as Witness: Cultural Production, Conflict and Human Rights in Syria,” Lehman College, March 2018.
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, organizer, double panel: “Consuming Leisure, Producing Desire in the Arab World,” November 2009.
Chair, Discussant, Panelist
Discussant, Book Talk, Uğur Ümit Üngör’s The Syrian Gulag, Middle East and Middle Eastern Studies Center, Graduate Center, CUNY, October 2023.
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, panel chair, “Politics in and of Middle Eastern Fictional Television,” Chicago, March 2017.
Conference, Italian Society for Middle Eastern Studies (SeSaMO), discussant on panel, “Syria’s Alawites: From Domination to Survival?,” Catania, Italy, March 2016.
“The End of Syria’s Multiculturalism? A Panel with Activists and Scholars from Minority Backgrounds,” discussant, Middle Eastern and Middle Eastern American Center, The Graduate Center, April 2016.
Emergency Cinema and the War in Syria: Screening of Abounaddara feature film Syria: Snapshots of History in the Making. Post screening discussion panelist with collective co-founder, producer and spokesperson, Charif Kiwan. Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the Columbia Journalism School, Columbia University, February 2015.
Symposium, “The Revolutionary Public Sphere,” panel chair, “Power, Performance, Violence,” Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, April 2014.
Conference, “Arab Uprisings: Contesting Narratives, Locating Power,” panelist, “Locating Power,” Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, April 2012.
“Spotlight on Syrian Television Drama: An Evening with Director Laith Hajjo,” organizer and discussant, MEMEAC, CUNY Graduate Center, August 2011.
“Visibly Muslim,” presentation by Emma Tarlo, Discussant, MEMEAC and Center for the Humanities, CUNY Graduate Center, September 2010.
World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies, discussant, panel “‘Ulama and the Representation of Religion in Arab TV Serials,” Barcelona, July 2010.
American Council of Learned Societies Annual Meeting, invited panel participant, “Emerging Themes and Methods of Humanities Research: Discussion with ACLS Fellows,” Philadelphia, May 2010.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, chair, presidential double session, “The Crisis in Gaza: Challenges and Lessons for Anthropology and Human Rights,” December 2009.
Panelist, “Public Access: Media and Civil Liberties in a Global Context,” Frederic Ewen Seminar in Civil Liberties, Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, Center for the Study of World Television Institute and the Department of Film and Television, Brooklyn College, March 2009.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, panelist, “Teaching Anthropology of the Middle East,” November 2008.
Panelist, “Nostalgia and Memory,” Middle East and Middle East American Center, CUNY Graduate Center, April 2008.
Panel discussion, Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World, presentation: “Arab Women, Development, and the Limits of Multiculturalism,” CUNY Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center/Ralph Bunch Institute for International Studies, May 2007.
“Women, Power and the Media,” invited presentation and panel discussion, Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, United Arab Emirates, April 2007.
“Veils,” photography exhibit opening, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, CUNY Graduate Center, February 2006.
Round Table Participation
Temple University, Global Studies and Department of Asian and Middle Eatsern Languages and Studies, “Current Trends in Syrian Studies,” November 2023.
Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies Conference, invited participant, two-day roundtable, “The State and Its Limits after the Arab Uprisings,” Odense, Denmark September 2016.
New York University Center for Dialogues, January 2009.
Other
Reader, “For Syria: An Evening of Poetry in Translation,” Middle Eastern and Middle Eastern American Center, The Graduate Center, April 2016.
Public event, “48H/Syria,” presentation: “Nabil Maleh and the Politics of Cultural Production in Syria,” Lund University, Lund, Sweden, December 2013.
“Islam and Secularism in Urban and Media Studies: Ethnographic Approaches,” invited presentation, Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies Ph.D. Course, “Secularism, Nationalism and Religion: The Formation of the Future Middle East,” Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, Turkey, October 2012.
“The Syrian Uprising,” presentation, Swedish Board of Migration, Arild, Sweden, October 2011.
Public Lecture, "City Margins, Syrian Drama Creators, and Pan-Arab Television Markets," Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden, October 2010.
MEDIA APPEARANCES
Al Jazeera English English, podcast The Take, “How are Syria’s Ramadan Dramas Changing after Assad?”, 3 March 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t3OtZ-nsrw
Le Devoir (Montreal), quoted consultant: “La Syrie sur le seuil d’un nouveau soulèvement” (“Syria on the Threshold of a New Uprising”), 21 August 2023 https://www.ledevoir.com/monde/moyen-orient/797204/moyen-orient-la-syrie-sur-le-seuil-d-un-nouveau-soulevement
Der Spiegel, quoted consultant, “‘Under the Sky of Damascus’ auf der Berlinale: Ein Film aus der Grauzone” (“Under the Sky of Damascus at the Berlinale: A Film from the Gray Area”), 25 February 2023.
https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/kino/berlinale-under-the-sky-of-damascus-aus-syrien-ein-film-aus-der-grauzone-a-089b5e63-fc3b-45d4-8be8-ed8cca443edf
Black Girl Nerds, quoted consultant, article “Brown Female Superhero Breaks Marvel’s Barrier, 8 June 2022.
https://blackgirlnerds.com/brown-female-superhero-breaks-marvels-barrier/
30 Minute Expert, podcast, “Syria,” 21 June 2020 https://shows.acast.com/30minuteexpert/episodes/04-syria
Yahoo Finance, quoted consultant, “Take the WWE’s All-Female Saudi Match ‘With Heavy Pinch of Salt’,” 4 November 2019 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/take-ww-es-allfemale-saudi-match-with-heavy-pinch-of-salt-212222496.html
The Telegraph, quoted consultant, “Netflix’s Long Awaited Entry into the Arab Market Stokes Anger with Supernatural Teen Drama,” 8 July 2019
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/08/netflixs-long-awaited-entry-arab-market-stokes-anger-supernatural/
KPFA, program: “Voices of the Middle East and North Africa,” interview on Syrian television drama, aired 14 June 2018. Archived on issue 6.2 of Jadaliyya’s Status/الودع . http://www.statushour.com/en/Interview/2432
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/40004
Al Jazeera English, “Liberation or Obliteration? Telling the Raqqa Story,” The Listening Post, aired 28 October 2017
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2017/10/liberation-obliteration-telling-raqqa-story-171028071407335.html
Bronx TV 12, interviewed on Donald Trump’s potential as a Middle East peace broker 20 September 2017
Le Courier (Switzerland), quoted consultant, “La revolution ne sera (presque) pas
Télévisée,” 4 August 2017
https://www.lecourrier.ch/151482/la_revolution_ne_sera_presque_pas_televisee
Brownbook (Dubai), “Conversations: The World of the Musalsal,” interviewed by Esra Gürman, 59 (September/October) 2016
New York Times, quoted consultant, “Nabil Maleh, Giant of Syrian Cinema, Dies at Age 79” March 1, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/arts/syria-director-nabil-maleh-obituary.html?_r=0
BBC Radio 4, consultant, The Museum of Lost Objects,” episode “Palmyra: Temple of Bel,” March 1, 2016. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b071tgbm
Vanity Fair, quoted consultant, “War Porn and Barrel Bombs: Inside Assad’s Propaganda Offensive,” 23 February 2016
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/02/syria-assad-anti-isis-film
Istoé, (Brazilian weekly), quoted, “A barbárie, o medo e a comoção em um mundo mais perigoso,” November 19, 2015http://www.istoe.com.br/reportagens/441123_A+BARBARIE+O+MEDO+E+A+COMOCAO+EM+UM+MUNDO+MAIS+PERIGOSO
NPR, quoted consultant, “’Shesh Yak’ Explores a Society Torn Apart by Civil War,” Program, All Things Considered, February 15, 2015.
http://www.npr.org/2015/02/15/386544380/-shesh-yak-explores-a-society-torn-apart-by-the-syrian-civil-war
NY1, panelist, “Middle East Experts Discuss Islamic State Crisis,” Program, Inside City Hall, September 19, 2014
http://www.ny1.com/archives/nyc/all-boroughs/2014/09/19/ny1-online--middle-east-experts-discuss-islamic-state-crisis-NYC_215841.old.html
NY1, panelist, “Experts Examine the Crisis in Syria,” program, The Road to City Hall, May 10, 2013
http://www.ny1.com/archives/nyc/all-boroughs/2013/05/10/ny1-online--experts-examine-crisis-in-syria-NYC_181909.old.html
Slate fr., quoted consultant, “En Syrie, pendant la guerre, les séries continuent,” 8 July2013. www.slate.fr/story/76162/series-ramadan-syrie
CNN.com, quoted consultant, article “Mideast Men go Under Knife for Manly Mustaches,” 29 November 2012.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/29/world/meast/mustache-transplants-middle-east/index.html
The National (United Arab Emirates), quoted consultant, “Ramadan TV: Napoleon Wel Mahrousa Rules the Airwaves” 9 August 2012.
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/television/ramadan-tv-napoleon-wel-mahrousa-rules-the-airwaves
Chicago Tribune, A New Old Damascus cited, “Ten Things You Should Know about Syria, 5 August 2012.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-perspec-0805-things-20120805,0,6858293.story
The Global Mail, consultant and translator, “The Bold Comedians of Syria Strike Back,” 11 July 2012.
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/the-bold-comedians-of-syria-strike-back/300/#
Dutch National News, “Black Humor as a Weapon against Assad,” NOS op 3, aired 19 April 2012.
http://nos.nl/op3/video/363896-zwarte-humor-als-wapen-tegen-assad.html
CNN.com, consultant, article “Famed Syrian Novelist Writes for the Opposition,” 29 March 2012.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/29/world/syria-novelist/index.html
Al Jazeera English, “The Message from Damascus,” The Listening Post, aired 5 November 2011
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2011/11/2011115112724457105.html
Columbia News Tonight, guest, “Bloodshed in Syria,” aired April 1, 2011.
The Brian Lehrer Show (WNYC), guest, “The Syrian Factor,” broadcast March 31, 2011
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2011/mar/31/syrian-factor/
Danish newspaper Informatíon, consultant, article “In the Middle East, Television
Entertainment as Culture,” 14 January 2011. http://www.information.dk/256453
Globalpost, consultant, article “With Ramadan, the Drama Begins,” 11 August 2010
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/middle-east/100810/ramadan-syria-soap- operas
Danish Broadcasting Corporation, DR2, Udland (television program), interview on current research, April 2010
Bronx Journal (Bronx public access TV) interview on Arab television research, May 2009
Al Jazeera English, consultant, program “Empire,” episode on the League of Arab States. March 2009
Al-Watan (newspaper), Syria, 15 August 2008, interview on television research (in Arabic)
BBC Arabic Service, July 2007, program on informal settlements in the Middle East (in Arabic)
Variety, consultant, article on Syrian television industry, November 2007
Inside Lehman (aired on CUNY TV), profile of Anthropology Department, 2005
FILM FESTIVAL, THEATER COMMENTARY
Moderator, “Arab Storytellers beind the Camera: Lessons from Ten Years of Curating Arab Cinema,” ANA Contemporary Arab Film Series and Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, NYU, October 2022
Moderator, post-screening discussion of ‘dedekens, MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Showcase, New York, November 2019
Participant, post-screening discussion of We Cannot Go There Now, My Dear Lebanon, Socially Relevant Film Festival, New York, March 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_H-NBTr594
Panelist, “Emergency Cinema and the War in Syria: Screening of Abounaddara feature film Syria: Snapshots of History in the Making. Post-screening discussion with collective co-founder, producer and spokesperson, Charif Kiwan. Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the Columbia Journalism School, Columbia University, February 2015
Panelist, “What Can Unite Syrians Today?” post-performance discussion of play Shesh Yak, Rattlesnake Theater, New York, NY, January 2015
“A Discussion between the Playwright and Anthropologist Dr. Christa Salamandra,” post-performance, Shesh Yak, Rattlesnake Theater, NY, February 2015
Presenter and co-organizer, Nabil Maleh Retrospective, Alwan for the Arts and the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, the Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, April-May 2013
Presenter and co-organizer, Dox Box Global Day, Malmö, Sweden, March 2012
Presenter, Malmö Arab Film Festival, Malmö, Sweden September 2011
Presenter, Fribourg International Film Festival, Forum@FIFF 2010, Fribourg, Switzerland, March 2010
FIELDWORK EXPERIENCE
SERVICE TO LEHMAN COLLEGE
SERVICE TO THE GRADUATE CENTER
SERVICE TO PROFESSION
EDITORIAL
BOARD AND COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS
SELECTION, SEARCH AND REVIEW COMMITTEES
THESIS/DISSERTATION EXAMINATIONS
PROMOTION REVIEWS
MANUSCRIPT REVIEWS
Middle East Critique, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024; Arab Media and Society, 2007, 2009, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2024 (2); Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2022; International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2019, 2020, 2014; Journal of Material Culture, 1998, 2020; History and Anthropology, 2018; Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI), 2018; Rutgers University Press, 2018; Middle East Journal, 2013, 2018; Cyberorient, 2017, 2019; PBS, POV Community Engagement & Education Discussion Guide, Return to Homs, Media, Culture and Society, 2013; Anthropological Quarterly, 2012; Signs, 2012; Indiana University Press, 2010; City and Society, 2008; Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2008; Contemporary Studies in Society and History, 2006; Transnational Broadcasting Studies, 2005; Cultural Anthropology, 1996
RESEARCH ADVISORY BOARDS
Advisory Board Member, research project, “Archiving the Future: Re-Collections of Syria in War and Peace,” University of Copenhagen, February 2020-January 2023.
Advisory Board Member, research project, “Mediatized Diaspora: Contentious Politics among Arab Media Users in Europe.” University of Copenhagen. Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, Denmark, September 1, 2018-August 21, 2021.
International Advisory Board member, research project, “Sectarianism in the Wake of the Arab Revolts,” Velux Foundation, Denmark, administered through Aarhus University, Denmark, May 2016-January 2019.
OUTREACH
BOOK TALKS
Of Middle Eastern Television Drama
Of Syria From Reform to Revolt
Of A New Old Damascus
TEACHING
Doctoral Students
M.A. student advising
Undergraduate courses (recurrent)
Courses taught at the CUNY Graduate Center
Other
Courses taught at Lebanese American University, Beirut
Courses taught at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
University of Oxford
Department of Anthropology
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
[email protected]
EDUCATION
D. Phil, University of Oxford, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, 2001
M.A., Department of Anthropology, New York University, 1992
B.A., magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, New York University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, 1986
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Professor and Deputy Chair, Department of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York, from 2017
Faculty Member, Doctoral Program in Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York, from December 2010
Director, Masters Program in Middle Eastern Studies, Graduate Center, City University of New York, from July 2022
Interim Director, Lehman Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies, January 2018-August 2018
Visiting Professor, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden, May 2011-2012
Associate Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York. September 2008-2017
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York, 2004-2008
Visiting Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2001-2002.
Research Associate, University of Oxford, 1999-2001. Project: Connection and Imagery: Transnational Cultural Flows and the Arab Gulf, Economic and Social Research Council Transnational Communities Programme.
Sociological and anthropological theory and methodology (tutorials), University of Oxford, 1991-1992, 1995-1996, urban anthropology, 1998.
FELLOWSHIPS
Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Research Fellow, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 2018-2019.
Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor of Sociology, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon, 2002-2004.
Visiting Fellow, New Islamic Public Sphere Programme, University of Copenhagen, March and April 2010.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
(In progress) Waiting for Light: Syrian Television Drama Production in the Satellite Era. Book manuscript under contract with Indiana University Press.
Middle Eastern Television Drama: Politics, Aesthetics, Practices. Co-edited with Nour Halabi. Routledge, 2023.
Syria from Reform to Revolt: Culture, Society and Religion. Co-edited with Leif Stenberg, eds. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015. In its second printing.
Arabic translation of “Introduction: A Legacy of Raised Expectations” published on World Institute for Studieswebsite: http://alaalam.org/ar/translations-ar/item/476-635110217.
Excerpt of “Introduction: A Legacy of Raised Expectations,” reprinted in Arab Media and Society, 23, 2017. http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=1019.
A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Peer Reviewed Articles
(In Press) “The Dictator’s New Clothes: On Syrian Drama,” Coauthored with Nour Halabi, Allegra Lab.
“Vulnerability, Empathy, and Allyship in Syria: Reflections of an Ethnographer,” Syrian Studies Journal 16(1), 2025.
“Introduction: Politics in and of Middle Eastern Fictional Television,” co-authored with Nour Halabi. Special Issue of Middle East Critique, 28(2), Summer 2019.
“The Past Continuous: Memory and History in Syrian Social Drama,” in Politics in and of Middle Eastern Fictional Television, Special Issue of Middle East Critique, 28(2), Summer 2019.
“Sectarianism in Syria: Anthropological Reflections,” Middle East Critique, 22(3), 2013. Arabic translation published December 9, 2016 on World Institute for Studies website:
http://alaalam.org/ar/index.php/translations-ar/item/447-الطائفيّة-في-سوريا-تأمُّلات-أنثروبولوجيّة
“The Muhannad Effect: Media Panic, Melodrama and the Arab Female Gaze,” Anthropological Quarterly, 85(1), 2012.
“Spotlight on the Bashar al-Asad Era: The Television Drama Outpouring,” Middle East Critique, 20(2), 2011.
“Creative Compromise: Syrian Television Makers between Secularism and Islamism,” Contemporary Islam, 2(3), 2008. Reprinted in Anna Piela, ed, Islam and The Media Vol. 1. London: Routledge, 2016.
“Television and the Ethnographic Endeavor: The Case of Syrian Drama,” Transnational Broadcasting Studies, 14 (Spring/Summer 2005).
“London’s Arab Media and the Construction of Arabness,” Transnational Broadcasting Studies, 10, Spring 2003. http://tbsjournal.arabmediasociety.com/Archives/Spring03/salamandra.html
“Globalisation and Cultural Mediation: The Construction of Arabia in London,” Global Networks, 2(4), 2002.
"Moustache Hairs Lost: Ramadan Television Serials and the Construction of Identity in Damascus, Syria," Visual Anthropology, 10(2-4), 1998. Reprinted in Toby Miller, ed., Television, Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies, Vol. 2. London: Routledge, 2003.
Journal Special Issues
Politics in and of Middle Eastern Fictional Television, co-edited with Nour Halabi. Special Issue of Middle East Critique, 28(2), Summer 2019.
Book Chapters “Past Continuous: Memory and History in Syrian Social Drama.” In Christa Salamandra and Nour Halabi, eds., Middle Eastern Television Drama: Politics, Aesthetics, Practices. Routledge, 2023.
“Aesthetic Arabism: The Syrian Musalsal Beyond Borders.” In Joe Khalil, Gholam Khiabany, Bilge Yesil, and Tourya Guayybess, eds., Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East. Hoboken: Wiley, 2023.
“Introduction—The Musalsal: Drama, Arab Style.” In Hadeel Eltayeb and Pamela Erskine-Loftus, eds. The World is Watching Musalsalat. Edinburgh: Akkadia Press, 2023.
“A Mirror for Fieldworkers.” In Judith Scheele and Andrew Shryock, eds. The Scandal of Continuity: Problems of Duration and Form in Anthropology. Indiana University Press, 2019.
“Ambivalent Islam: Religion in Syrian Television Drama.” In Karin van Nieuwkerk, Mark Levine, and Martin Stokes, eds. Islam and Popular Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016.
With Leif Stenberg, “Introduction: A Legacy of Raised Expectations.” In Christa Salamandra and Leif Stenberg, eds. Syria from Reform to Revolt: Culture, Society and Religion. Syracuse University Press, 2015. Arabic translation published February 11, 2017 on World Institute for Studies website: http://alaalam.org/ar/translations-ar/item/476-635110217.
“Syria’s Drama Outpouring between Complicity and Critique.” In Christa Salamandra and Leif Stenberg, eds., Syria from Reform to Revolt: Culture, Society and Religion. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015. Excerpt published in Arab Media and Society, 23 (Fall/Winter), 2017: http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=1019. Arabic translation published May 8, 2017 on World Institute for Studies website: http://alaalam.org/ar/translations-ar/item/521-623080517.
“Nabil Maleh: Syria’s Leopard.” In Josef Gugler, ed. Ten Arab Directors: Political Dissent and Social Critique. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015.
“Arab Television Drama Production and the Islamic Public Sphere.” In Christiane Gruber and Sune Haugbølle, eds., Rhetoric of the Image: Visual Culture in Muslim Contexts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
“Syrian Television Drama: A National Industry in a in a Pan-Arab Mediascape.” In Tourya Guaaybess, ed., National Broadcasting Policy in Arab Countries. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
“The New Old City: Nostalgia, Representation and Gentrification in Historic Damascus.” In Vinayak Bharne, ed., The Emerging Asian City: Concomitant Urbanities & Urbanisms. London: Routledge, 2012.
“Arab Television Drama Production in the Satellite Era.” In Diana I. Rios and Mari Castaneda, eds., Soap Operas and Telenovelas in the Digital Age: Global Industries, Hybrid Content, and New Audiences. New York: Peter Lang, 2011.
“Consumption, Display, and Gender.” In Samir Khalaf and Roseanne Khalaf, eds., Arab Culture and Society. London: Saqi Books, 2010. Reprinted from Christa Salamandra, A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria, pp. 48-64. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
“Through the Back Door: Syrian Television Makers between Secularism and Islamization.” In Kai Hafez ed., Arab Media: Power and Weakness. New York: Continuum, 2008.
“La television à l’heure du feuilleton.” In Baudoiun Dupret, Zouhair Ghazzal, Youssef Courbage and Mohammed al-Dbyat, eds., La Syrie au present: Reflets d’une société. Paris: Actes Sud, 2007.
“Chastity Capital: Hierarchy and Distinction in Damascus.” In Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon, eds., Sexuality in the Arab World. London: Saqi Books, 2006.
“Cultural Construction, the Gulf, and Arab London.” In Paul Dresch and James Piscatori, eds., Monarchies and Nations: Globalisation and Identity in the Arab States of the Gulf. London: I. B. Tauris, 2005.
"Consuming Damascus: Public Culture and the Construction of Social Identity." In Walter Armbrust, ed., Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Non-Peer Reviewed Articles“New Texts Out Now: Christ Salamandra and Nour Halabi, Middle Eastern Television Drama (interview and book excerpt), Jadaliyya, December 11, 2023. https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/45441/Christa-Salamandra-and-Nour-Halabi,-eds,-Middle-Eastern-Television-Drama-Politics,-Aesthetics,-Practices-New-Texts-Out-Now
“Waiting: The Neighborhood that Eats Its Children,” Drama Critics 3 (May): 52-63, 2017. (al-Intizar: al-Hara alati Ta’kul Ibna’iha. Nuqad Drama 3 (Ayar): 52-63.) http://drama-critics.com/?p=987
“New Texts Out Now: Christ Salamandra and Leif Stenberg, Syria from Reform to Revolt, vol. 2,” (interview and book excerpt), Jadaliyya, November 10, 2016.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/25475/new-texts-out-now_christa-salamandra-and-leif-sten
“Syria’s Leopard, Part 1,” Jadaliyya, March 8, 2016.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/24025/syria’s-leopard-(part-1)
Arabic translation published February 25, 2017:
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/26111/فهد-سوريا_-الجزء-الأول
“Syria’s Leopard, Part 2,” Jadaliyya, March 9, 2016.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/24026/syria’s-leopard-(part-2)
Arabic translation published February 27, 2017:
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/26112/فهد-سوريا_-الجزء-الثاني
“Reflections on Not Writing about the Syrian Conflict,” Jadaliyya, February 2014.http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/16290/reflections-on-not-writing-about-the-syrian-confli
“Reflections on Sectarianism in Syria,” Anthropology News, November 2012.http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/06/20/reflections-on-sectarianism-in-syria/
“Prelude to an Uprising: Syrian Fictional Television and Socio-Political Critique,” Jadaliyya, May 2012. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/5578/prelude-to-an-uprising_syrian-fictional-television.
“Al-Intizar,” catalogue entry, Fribourg International Film Festival, 2010.
“Dramatizing Damascus: The Cultural Politics of Arab Television Production in the Satellite Era.” Islam Lecture Series, University of Copenhagen, April 2010. http://islam.ku.dk/lectures/Salamandra140410.pdf/.
Poetry translation, “Hole in the Head” and “The Last Time,” by Rima Buaini. Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arabic Literature, Vol. 31, Spring 2008.
“Damascus: New Dynamics in and about an Old City,” Anthropology News, January 2007.
Guest Editor, ArteNews Quarterly Feature: “Ambivalent Nostalgias.” October 2007. http://www.arteeast.dreamhosters.com/pages/artenews/nostalgias/
“Nostalgia Commodified: Old Damascus,” ArteNews Quarterly Feature, October 2007. http://www.arteeast.dreamhosters.com/pages/artenews/nostalgias/
Translation from the Arabic, with Suhail Shadoud, “Canons of the Past,” by Najib Nusair, October 2007. http://www.arteeast.dreamhosters.com/pages/artenews/nostalgias/
Encyclopedia Entries“Cities: Urban Movement: Arab States (excepting North Africa).” In Suad Joseph, ed. Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, Vol. 6. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-women-and-islamic-cultures/cities-urban-movement-arab-states-excepting-north-africa-EWICCOM_00391a?s.num=1&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopedia-of-women-and-islamic-cultures&s.q=Salamandra
“Space: Female Space.” In Suad Joseph, ed. Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, Vol. 4. Leiden: Brill, 2007. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-women-and-islamic-cultures/space-female-space-egypt-iraq-jordan-lebanon-and-palestine-EWICCOM_0281a?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopedia-of-women-and-islamic-cultures&s.q=Salamandra
Commissioned Book Reviewscooke, miriam, Dissident Syria (2007). Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Studies, 5(1) 2009.
Jonathan Holt Shannon, Among the Jasmine Trees: Music and Modernity in Contemporary Syria (2006). H-Net Levant, October 2008.
https://networks.h-net.org/node/7801/reviews/8278/salamandra-shannon-among-jasmine-trees-music-and-modernity-contemporary
Annika Rabo. A Shop of One’s Own: Independence and Reputation among Traders in Aleppo (2005). Syrian Studies Association Newsletter 13(1), 2007.
Nezar Alsayyad, Irene A. Bierman and Nasser Rabbat, eds. Making Cairo Medieval (2005). International Journal of Third World Studies, 17, 2006.
Naomi Sakr, ed., Women and Media in the Middle East: Power through Self-Expression (2003). Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 2(3), Fall 2006.
Scholarly Weblog Postings
“An Ethnography of Syrian Television Drama,” Les carnets de l’Ifpo, 10 January 2011.
http://ifpo.hypotheses.org/617
“Television and Its Discontents,” Material World, 27 August 2007. http://www.materialworldblog.com/2007/08/television-and-its-discontents/
OpinionLetter to the Editor, “Must-See TV,” New York Times, Arts & Leisure, November 14, 2010, p.4. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/arts/design/14almail-MUSTSEETV_LETTERS.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=search&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0
Unpublished Report
Transnationalism and Gulf Arab London. 2001. Project report for: Connection and Imagery: Transnational Cultural Flows and the Arab Gulf, Economic and Social Research Council Transnational Communities Program, 1999-2001.
Exhibition Catalogs
The World is Watching Musalsalaat. The Media Majlis Museum, Northwestern University in Qatar. Contributing Curator, January 18,-May 11, 2023. https://mediamajlis.northwestern.edu/en/whats-on/exhibitions-programs/the-world-is-watching-musalsalat-2023-01-17-2023-05-11
GRANTS AND AWARDS
- Fulbright Scholar Grant, research in the United Arab Emirates, 2018-2019
- Lehman Fellowship Leave, 2018-2019
- Lehman Fellowship Leave, 2011-2012
- Lehman Faculty Development Award, 4 credit reassigned time, 2011 (declined)
- Lehman Faculty Development Award, 2010
- PSC-CUNY Research Award, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
- Selected participant, CUNY Faculty Fellowship Publication Program, spring 2008
- Shuster Fellowship, Lehman College, 2005, 2007, 2008
- Fulbright Scholar Grant, Research and Lectureship in Lebanon),2002-2003, 2003-2004
- Philip Bagby Bequest Grant, University of Oxford, 1993
- International Dissertation Research Fellowship, Social Science Research Council, New York, 1992
- Linacre House Trust Grant, 1992
- Overseas Research Students Award, University of Oxford, 1990-1993
- Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, New York University, 1989
- New York University Tuition Fellowship, 1988
- Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, New York University, 1987
- Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship (for Arabic Study in Syria) 1986
- Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, New York University, 1985
- Lucy Moses Scholarship, New York University 1985
- Ibn Khaldun Prize in Arabic Studies, New York University, 1984
- Conoco Fellowship for Arabic Study, Summer 1984 \
PRESENTATIONS
Keynote Addresses
“Intersecting Sectarianisms in Syria,” conference, “Sectarian Materialities,” Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, May-June 2017.
“The Past Progressive: History and Belonging in Syrian Television Drama,” conference, “Media in Muslim Contexts: Inventing and Reinventing Identities,” Institute for the Study of Islamic Civilization, The Aga Khan University, London, November 2016.
“The Dark Aesthetic: Portents of the Syrian Conflict in Popular and Cinematic Culture,” conference, Nordic Society for Middle East Conference, Lund, Sweden, September 2013.
“Syrian Television Drama: An Enduring Tradition of Social Realism,” International PhD and Research School, “Arab TV Fiction and Entertainment Industries,”
Danish Institute in Damascus, Syria, November 2010.
“Spotlight on the Bashar al-Asad Era,” conference, “Bashar al-Asad's First Decade: A Period of Transition for Syria,” Lund University, Sweden, April 2010.
Invited Presentations
“Representation, Reciprocity, and Vulnerability: Empathy, Allyship, and Ethnographic Fieldwork in Syria,” workshop, “Trends in Syrian Studies,” Villanova University, November 2023.
“Aesthetic Arabism,” book conversation, The Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, CUNY Graduate Center, October 2023.
“Syrian Drama as Default Archive,” workshop, “Re-collections: Images Beyond the Archive,” Center for Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, September 2022.
“The Right to the Ruins: Fictional Media Production ant the Syrian Conflict,” seminar series “Art and Power in the Middle East: Past and Present,” NYU Abu Dhabi Institute, November 2020.
“City, Chaos, and Conflict in Syrian Television Drama,” Near Eastern Studies Brown Bag Series, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, February 2020.
“Explaining Sectarianism across Space and Time,” workshop, “Sectarianism in the Wake of the Arab Revolts” project conclusion, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, January 2019.
“Syria’s Critical Media,” workshop, “Mediatized Diasporas,” presentation: Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, Copenhagen University, Denmark, January 2019.
Seminar, “Serially Haphazard: Syrian Television Drama in the Satellite Era,” Department of Mass Communication, American University of Sharjah, Unites Arab Emirates, November 2018.
“Past Continuous: Memory and History in Syrian Social Drama,” conference, “History and Society on TV in the Middle East,” Department of History, University of Maryland, College Park, April 2017.
“The Drama of Damascus,” symposium, “Syria’s Art and Architecture: A Multicultural History,” The Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, October 2016.
“The Muhannad Effect: Syrian Television’s Dark Aesthetic,” Museum Lecture Series, Department of History, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, June 2016.
“It’s Not about the Data: A Mirror for Fieldworkers,” Festschrift for Paul Dresch, presentation, All Souls College, Oxford, September 2015.
“In Pasolini’s Footsteps: Syrian Social Drama,” Near Eastern Studies Brown Bag Series, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, September 2014.
“Nostalgia Revisited,” conference, “The Future of Nostalgia in the Middle East,” New Islamic Public Sphere Programme, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, June 2014.
“Roads to Damascus: Urban Imaginings in State-Sanctioned and Dissident Cultural Production,” workshop, “The Arab Spring: The Preludes,” Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar, April 2013.
“Syria’s Drama Outpouring: Cultural Production between Complicity and Critique,” workshop, “Islam and Popular Culture,” Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NOW), Amsterdam, March 2013.
“The Dark Aesthetic: Social Realist Television and Dissident Culture in Syria,” seminar, Kevorkian Center for Middle Eastern Studies, New York University, November 2012.
“Dramatizing Damascus: Syrian Television Creators between Complicity and Critique,” Public Space Seminar, CUNY Graduate Center, November 2012.
“From No Hope to Freedom and Nothing But: The Subversive Potential of Syrian Television Drama,” workshop, “Changing Media Ecologies in the Arab World: Before and After the Jasmine Revolution,” Section for Middle Eastern Studies, Department of Oriental Languages and the Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, March 2012.
“Prelude to an Uprising: Syrian Fictional Television and Socio-Political Critique,” Public Lecture, Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar, March 2012
“Ethnographic Approaches to Arab Cultural Production: The Case of Syrian Television Drama,” Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, September 2011.
“Depicting Damascus: An Ethnography of Arab Television Drama,” workshop, “New Trends in Middle Eastern Popular Culture,” Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, May 2011.
“Ethnographic Approaches to Syrian Television Drama,” seminar series, “Perspectives and Areas of Research in the Near East,” Institut français du Proche-Orient, Damascus, December 2010.
“Dramatizing Damascus: The Cultural Politics of Arab Television Production in the Satellite Era,” Islam Lecture Series, University of Copenhagen, April 2010.
“Arab Television Drama Production in the Satellite Era,” symposium, “Information Evolution in the Arab World,” Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, March 22, 2010.
Fribourg International Film Festival, Forum@FIFF 2010: TV Series in the Middle East, invited presentation, “Al-Intizar,” Fribourg, Switzerland, March 2010.
“Bizir Night: Drama Series from Turkey and Syria,” Middle East and Middle East American Center, CUNY Graduate Center, October 2008.
“Arab Television Drama Production and the Islamic Public Sphere,” conference, “Rhetoric of the Image: Visual Culture in Political Islam,” University of Copenhagen, March 2009.
“Dramatic Secularism: Globalization, Islamization, and Syrian Television,” Council on Middle Eastern Studies, MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, March 2008.
“Among the Producers: Syrian Television Makers and Discourses of Distinction,” CUNY Graduate Center Ph.D. Program in Anthropology Colloquium, March 2006
“Television and the Ethnographic Endeavor: The Case of Syrian Television,” Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, CUNY Graduate Center, October 2005.
“Global Media and the Arab World,” conference, Identities Versus Globalization?: Cultural and Political Dimensions of Globalization,” Heinrich Böll Foundation, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany, January 2005.
“The Arab Media in London and the Construction of Arabness,” conference, “New Communications Media in the Arab World: A Revolution in Everyday Life,” House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany, June 2004.
“Authenticity, Identity, and Syrian Television,” Center for Behavioral Research, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, May 2004
“Authenticity Commodified: Transnational Markets and Arab Locals,” Fifth Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Mediterranean Programme, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence, Italy, March 2004.
“Ethnographic Approaches to Syrian TV Drama,” conference, Beirut Institute for Media Arts, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon, March 2004.
“Chastity Capital: Display, Distinction and Hierarchy in Damascus,” conference, “Sexuality in the Arab World,” American University of Beirut, Lebanon, December 2003.
“London’s Arab Media,” conference, Beirut Institute for Media Arts, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon, October 2002.
“That Color Looks Great on You”: Consumption and Distinction among Women in Damascus,” Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon, April 2003.
“Cultural Mediators and the Construction of Arabia in London,” conference, “Connections and Identities: Transformations in the Arab Gulf,” University of Oxford, September 2001.
“Ramadan Television in Damascus,” workshop, “Islam on Television,” Carsten Niebuhr Institute, University of Copenhagen, December 1999.
“Dramatizing Damascus,” workshop, “Popular Culture in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Georgetown University, May 1998.
"Consuming the City: The Construction of Social Identity in Damascus," “Ethnicity and Identity Seminar Series,” Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, February 1997.
“The Devil You Know: Transnationalism and Gulf Arab London,” conference, “The Middle East in London,” School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, July 2001.
Conference Papers
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, presentation, “Television (Still) Matters: Drama in and of the Middle East,” November 2023.
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, presentation, “Television Matters,” New Orleans, November 2019.
Society for Cinema and Media Studies, presentation: “An Exilic Industry: Syrian Television Drama,” Toronto, March 2018.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, presentation, “The Present Pasts: History and Belonging in Syrian Mass Cultural Production.” Washington, DC, November 2017.
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, presentation, “The Critical Politics and Somber Poetics of Syrian Television Drama.” Chicago, March 2017.
Conference, "Thinking Serially: Repetition, Continuation, and Adaptation,” presentation, “The Cultural Politics of Arab Television Drama Production,” Department of Comparative Literature, The Graduate Center, CUNY, April 2015.
American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, presentation, “Syrian Drama’s Dark Aesthetic: A Visual Language of Critique,” November 2014.
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, presentation, “Prelude to an Uprising: Syrian Fictional Television and Socio-Political Critique,” Denver, November 2012.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, presentation, “The Persistence of the Real: Syrian Social Drama Creators in an Age of Commercial Nostalgia,” Montreal, November 2011.
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, paper, “The Muhannad Effect: Melodrama, Media Panic and the Arab Female Gaze,” November 2009.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper, “Myths of Departure: (Im)mobility, Informal Settlements, and Arab Television Drama,” November 2008.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper, “Dramatic Difference: Inequality in Syrian Television,” November 2007.
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, paper, “Of Slings and Arrows: Syrian Television Producers between Secularism and Islamism,” November 2007.
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, paper, “Contentious Cosmopolitanism: Syrian Television Makers and Discourses of Distinction,”
March 2007.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper “Contentious Cosmopolitanism: Syrian Television Makers and Discourses of Distinction,”
November 2006.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper “Dramatic Secularism: Syrian TV Drama,” November 2005.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper “(Re)constructing Arabness: London’s Arab Media,” November 2003.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper “Transnationalism and Cultural Mediation: Constructing Arabia in London,” November 2002.
Conference, Globalisation and the Arab Gulf, paper “Globalisation and Gulf Arab London,” Exeter University, July 2001.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, paper “Consuming Ramadan: Popular Culture and Identity Construction in Damascus,” December 1998.
Fifth Annual International Festival of Ethnographic Film, paper "Broadcasting Old Damascus: Television and the Construction of Identity in Damascus, Syria," University of Kent, November 1996.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, invited paper, "The Days and Nights of Old Damascus: The Construction of Identity through Public Culture,” Washington, DC, November 1995."
Middle East Studies Association of North America Annual Meeting, invited paper, "The Days and Nights of Old Damascus: The Construction of Identity through Public Culture," Washington, DC, December 1995.
The American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, "From Couscous to Moussaka: Middle Eastern Restaurants and the Creation of a Middle Eastern Cuisine," Philadelphia, PA, October 1989.
Conference Organization
Organizer, Lehman Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies Annual Conference 2018, “Artist as Witness: Cultural Production, Conflict and Human Rights in Syria,” Lehman College, March 2018.
Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, organizer, double panel: “Consuming Leisure, Producing Desire in the Arab World,” November 2009.
Chair, Discussant, Panelist
Discussant, Book Talk, Uğur Ümit Üngör’s The Syrian Gulag, Middle East and Middle Eastern Studies Center, Graduate Center, CUNY, October 2023.
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Meeting, panel chair, “Politics in and of Middle Eastern Fictional Television,” Chicago, March 2017.
Conference, Italian Society for Middle Eastern Studies (SeSaMO), discussant on panel, “Syria’s Alawites: From Domination to Survival?,” Catania, Italy, March 2016.
“The End of Syria’s Multiculturalism? A Panel with Activists and Scholars from Minority Backgrounds,” discussant, Middle Eastern and Middle Eastern American Center, The Graduate Center, April 2016.
Emergency Cinema and the War in Syria: Screening of Abounaddara feature film Syria: Snapshots of History in the Making. Post screening discussion panelist with collective co-founder, producer and spokesperson, Charif Kiwan. Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the Columbia Journalism School, Columbia University, February 2015.
Symposium, “The Revolutionary Public Sphere,” panel chair, “Power, Performance, Violence,” Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, April 2014.
Conference, “Arab Uprisings: Contesting Narratives, Locating Power,” panelist, “Locating Power,” Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, April 2012.
“Spotlight on Syrian Television Drama: An Evening with Director Laith Hajjo,” organizer and discussant, MEMEAC, CUNY Graduate Center, August 2011.
“Visibly Muslim,” presentation by Emma Tarlo, Discussant, MEMEAC and Center for the Humanities, CUNY Graduate Center, September 2010.
World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies, discussant, panel “‘Ulama and the Representation of Religion in Arab TV Serials,” Barcelona, July 2010.
American Council of Learned Societies Annual Meeting, invited panel participant, “Emerging Themes and Methods of Humanities Research: Discussion with ACLS Fellows,” Philadelphia, May 2010.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, chair, presidential double session, “The Crisis in Gaza: Challenges and Lessons for Anthropology and Human Rights,” December 2009.
Panelist, “Public Access: Media and Civil Liberties in a Global Context,” Frederic Ewen Seminar in Civil Liberties, Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, Center for the Study of World Television Institute and the Department of Film and Television, Brooklyn College, March 2009.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, panelist, “Teaching Anthropology of the Middle East,” November 2008.
Panelist, “Nostalgia and Memory,” Middle East and Middle East American Center, CUNY Graduate Center, April 2008.
Panel discussion, Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World, presentation: “Arab Women, Development, and the Limits of Multiculturalism,” CUNY Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center/Ralph Bunch Institute for International Studies, May 2007.
“Women, Power and the Media,” invited presentation and panel discussion, Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, United Arab Emirates, April 2007.
“Veils,” photography exhibit opening, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, CUNY Graduate Center, February 2006.
Round Table Participation
Temple University, Global Studies and Department of Asian and Middle Eatsern Languages and Studies, “Current Trends in Syrian Studies,” November 2023.
Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies Conference, invited participant, two-day roundtable, “The State and Its Limits after the Arab Uprisings,” Odense, Denmark September 2016.
New York University Center for Dialogues, January 2009.
Other
Reader, “For Syria: An Evening of Poetry in Translation,” Middle Eastern and Middle Eastern American Center, The Graduate Center, April 2016.
Public event, “48H/Syria,” presentation: “Nabil Maleh and the Politics of Cultural Production in Syria,” Lund University, Lund, Sweden, December 2013.
“Islam and Secularism in Urban and Media Studies: Ethnographic Approaches,” invited presentation, Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies Ph.D. Course, “Secularism, Nationalism and Religion: The Formation of the Future Middle East,” Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, Turkey, October 2012.
“The Syrian Uprising,” presentation, Swedish Board of Migration, Arild, Sweden, October 2011.
Public Lecture, "City Margins, Syrian Drama Creators, and Pan-Arab Television Markets," Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden, October 2010.
MEDIA APPEARANCES
Al Jazeera English English, podcast The Take, “How are Syria’s Ramadan Dramas Changing after Assad?”, 3 March 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t3OtZ-nsrw
Le Devoir (Montreal), quoted consultant: “La Syrie sur le seuil d’un nouveau soulèvement” (“Syria on the Threshold of a New Uprising”), 21 August 2023 https://www.ledevoir.com/monde/moyen-orient/797204/moyen-orient-la-syrie-sur-le-seuil-d-un-nouveau-soulevement
Der Spiegel, quoted consultant, “‘Under the Sky of Damascus’ auf der Berlinale: Ein Film aus der Grauzone” (“Under the Sky of Damascus at the Berlinale: A Film from the Gray Area”), 25 February 2023.
https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/kino/berlinale-under-the-sky-of-damascus-aus-syrien-ein-film-aus-der-grauzone-a-089b5e63-fc3b-45d4-8be8-ed8cca443edf
Black Girl Nerds, quoted consultant, article “Brown Female Superhero Breaks Marvel’s Barrier, 8 June 2022.
https://blackgirlnerds.com/brown-female-superhero-breaks-marvels-barrier/
30 Minute Expert, podcast, “Syria,” 21 June 2020 https://shows.acast.com/30minuteexpert/episodes/04-syria
Yahoo Finance, quoted consultant, “Take the WWE’s All-Female Saudi Match ‘With Heavy Pinch of Salt’,” 4 November 2019 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/take-ww-es-allfemale-saudi-match-with-heavy-pinch-of-salt-212222496.html
The Telegraph, quoted consultant, “Netflix’s Long Awaited Entry into the Arab Market Stokes Anger with Supernatural Teen Drama,” 8 July 2019
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/08/netflixs-long-awaited-entry-arab-market-stokes-anger-supernatural/
KPFA, program: “Voices of the Middle East and North Africa,” interview on Syrian television drama, aired 14 June 2018. Archived on issue 6.2 of Jadaliyya’s Status/الودع . http://www.statushour.com/en/Interview/2432
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/40004
Al Jazeera English, “Liberation or Obliteration? Telling the Raqqa Story,” The Listening Post, aired 28 October 2017
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2017/10/liberation-obliteration-telling-raqqa-story-171028071407335.html
Bronx TV 12, interviewed on Donald Trump’s potential as a Middle East peace broker 20 September 2017
Le Courier (Switzerland), quoted consultant, “La revolution ne sera (presque) pas
Télévisée,” 4 August 2017
https://www.lecourrier.ch/151482/la_revolution_ne_sera_presque_pas_televisee
Brownbook (Dubai), “Conversations: The World of the Musalsal,” interviewed by Esra Gürman, 59 (September/October) 2016
New York Times, quoted consultant, “Nabil Maleh, Giant of Syrian Cinema, Dies at Age 79” March 1, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/arts/syria-director-nabil-maleh-obituary.html?_r=0
BBC Radio 4, consultant, The Museum of Lost Objects,” episode “Palmyra: Temple of Bel,” March 1, 2016. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b071tgbm
Vanity Fair, quoted consultant, “War Porn and Barrel Bombs: Inside Assad’s Propaganda Offensive,” 23 February 2016
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/02/syria-assad-anti-isis-film
Istoé, (Brazilian weekly), quoted, “A barbárie, o medo e a comoção em um mundo mais perigoso,” November 19, 2015http://www.istoe.com.br/reportagens/441123_A+BARBARIE+O+MEDO+E+A+COMOCAO+EM+UM+MUNDO+MAIS+PERIGOSO
NPR, quoted consultant, “’Shesh Yak’ Explores a Society Torn Apart by Civil War,” Program, All Things Considered, February 15, 2015.
http://www.npr.org/2015/02/15/386544380/-shesh-yak-explores-a-society-torn-apart-by-the-syrian-civil-war
NY1, panelist, “Middle East Experts Discuss Islamic State Crisis,” Program, Inside City Hall, September 19, 2014
http://www.ny1.com/archives/nyc/all-boroughs/2014/09/19/ny1-online--middle-east-experts-discuss-islamic-state-crisis-NYC_215841.old.html
NY1, panelist, “Experts Examine the Crisis in Syria,” program, The Road to City Hall, May 10, 2013
http://www.ny1.com/archives/nyc/all-boroughs/2013/05/10/ny1-online--experts-examine-crisis-in-syria-NYC_181909.old.html
Slate fr., quoted consultant, “En Syrie, pendant la guerre, les séries continuent,” 8 July2013. www.slate.fr/story/76162/series-ramadan-syrie
CNN.com, quoted consultant, article “Mideast Men go Under Knife for Manly Mustaches,” 29 November 2012.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/29/world/meast/mustache-transplants-middle-east/index.html
The National (United Arab Emirates), quoted consultant, “Ramadan TV: Napoleon Wel Mahrousa Rules the Airwaves” 9 August 2012.
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/television/ramadan-tv-napoleon-wel-mahrousa-rules-the-airwaves
Chicago Tribune, A New Old Damascus cited, “Ten Things You Should Know about Syria, 5 August 2012.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-perspec-0805-things-20120805,0,6858293.story
The Global Mail, consultant and translator, “The Bold Comedians of Syria Strike Back,” 11 July 2012.
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/the-bold-comedians-of-syria-strike-back/300/#
Dutch National News, “Black Humor as a Weapon against Assad,” NOS op 3, aired 19 April 2012.
http://nos.nl/op3/video/363896-zwarte-humor-als-wapen-tegen-assad.html
CNN.com, consultant, article “Famed Syrian Novelist Writes for the Opposition,” 29 March 2012.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/29/world/syria-novelist/index.html
Al Jazeera English, “The Message from Damascus,” The Listening Post, aired 5 November 2011
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2011/11/2011115112724457105.html
Columbia News Tonight, guest, “Bloodshed in Syria,” aired April 1, 2011.
The Brian Lehrer Show (WNYC), guest, “The Syrian Factor,” broadcast March 31, 2011
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2011/mar/31/syrian-factor/
Danish newspaper Informatíon, consultant, article “In the Middle East, Television
Entertainment as Culture,” 14 January 2011. http://www.information.dk/256453
Globalpost, consultant, article “With Ramadan, the Drama Begins,” 11 August 2010
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/middle-east/100810/ramadan-syria-soap- operas
Danish Broadcasting Corporation, DR2, Udland (television program), interview on current research, April 2010
Bronx Journal (Bronx public access TV) interview on Arab television research, May 2009
Al Jazeera English, consultant, program “Empire,” episode on the League of Arab States. March 2009
Al-Watan (newspaper), Syria, 15 August 2008, interview on television research (in Arabic)
BBC Arabic Service, July 2007, program on informal settlements in the Middle East (in Arabic)
Variety, consultant, article on Syrian television industry, November 2007
Inside Lehman (aired on CUNY TV), profile of Anthropology Department, 2005
FILM FESTIVAL, THEATER COMMENTARY
Moderator, “Arab Storytellers beind the Camera: Lessons from Ten Years of Curating Arab Cinema,” ANA Contemporary Arab Film Series and Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, NYU, October 2022
Moderator, post-screening discussion of ‘dedekens, MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Showcase, New York, November 2019
Participant, post-screening discussion of We Cannot Go There Now, My Dear Lebanon, Socially Relevant Film Festival, New York, March 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_H-NBTr594
Panelist, “Emergency Cinema and the War in Syria: Screening of Abounaddara feature film Syria: Snapshots of History in the Making. Post-screening discussion with collective co-founder, producer and spokesperson, Charif Kiwan. Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the Columbia Journalism School, Columbia University, February 2015
Panelist, “What Can Unite Syrians Today?” post-performance discussion of play Shesh Yak, Rattlesnake Theater, New York, NY, January 2015
“A Discussion between the Playwright and Anthropologist Dr. Christa Salamandra,” post-performance, Shesh Yak, Rattlesnake Theater, NY, February 2015
Presenter and co-organizer, Nabil Maleh Retrospective, Alwan for the Arts and the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, the Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, April-May 2013
Presenter and co-organizer, Dox Box Global Day, Malmö, Sweden, March 2012
Presenter, Malmö Arab Film Festival, Malmö, Sweden September 2011
Presenter, Fribourg International Film Festival, Forum@FIFF 2010, Fribourg, Switzerland, March 2010
FIELDWORK EXPERIENCE
- The United Arab Emirates 2008, 2018-2019
- Damascus, Syria 2002-2004; 2006-2007, 2010, 2017, 2019
- Beirut, Lebanon 2002-2004, 2006-2007, 2015, 2017, 2019
- London, UK 1999-2001
- D.Phil. research, Damascus, Syria, 1992-1994, 1996
SERVICE TO LEHMAN COLLEGE
- Lehman College, Anthropology Department, Cultural Assistant Professor Search Committee Chair, 2019-
- Interim Director, Lehman Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies, January-August 2018
- Lehman College, Anthropology Department, Cultural Assistant Professor Search Committee Chair, 2019, 2017, 2007
- Lehman College, Anthropology Department, Archaology Assistant/Associate Professor Search Committee, 2006
- Deputy Chair, Lehman College Department of Anthropology, 2014-
- Lehman College Curriculum Committee, 2013-2015
- Lehman College minor in Middle Eastern studies committee, 2009-
- Lehman College Department of Anthropology P&B member, 2008-
- Lehman College Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies Steering Committee, September 2008-
SERVICE TO THE GRADUATE CENTER
- Director, Masters Program in Middle Eastern Studies, Graduate Center, City University of New York, from July 2022
- Presentation on Fulbright experience, CUNY Office of Research Funding Fridays webinar, January 2022
- CUNY Graduate Center, Doctoral Program in Anthropology, 1st Exam Committee Chair, from 2022; Member, 2017, 2019, 2020
- CUNY Graduate Center Ph.D. Program in Anthropology Admissions Committee, 2016, 2017
- CUNY Graduate Center M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies Admissions Committee, 2016.
- CUNY Graduate Center, Ph.D. Program in Anthropology, DSRG (summer research grant) Selection Committee, 2015
- Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center (MEMEAC) Faculty Executive Committee, spring 2013-2022
SERVICE TO PROFESSION
EDITORIAL
- Editorial Board Member, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2020-
- Editorial Board Member, CyberOrient, 2015-2020
- Editorial Board Member, Middle East Critique, 2012-
- Editorial Board Member, Arab Media and Society, 2006-
- Book Review Editor, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, 1996-2001
- Graduate Assistant, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, 1994.
- Editorial Assistant for Muslim Travellers, Dale F. Eickelman and James P. Piscatori, eds. London: Routledge 1990
BOARD AND COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS
- Member, Board of Directors, Middle East Section, American Anthropological Association, 2017-2020.
- Middle East Studies Association, Presidential and Board of Directors Nominating Committee (elected position), 2014.
- American Anthropological Association, Committee for Human Rights Middle East Taskforce member, 2009-2010
SELECTION, SEARCH AND REVIEW COMMITTEES
- American Anthropological Association, Chair, Distinguished Scholar Award Committee, Middle East Section, 2018-2019
- Fulbright National Screening Committee, Near East/North Africa, 2015, 2016, 2017
- American Anthropological Association, Middle East Section, Annual Meeting Program Committee, 2009
- American Anthropological Association, Middle East Section, Student Essay Prize Committee, 2005
THESIS/DISSERTATION EXAMINATIONS
- Master’s thesis examiner, Mustafa Karahamad, M.A. Candidate, Department of History, University of Siegen, Germany, 2018.
- Doctoral thesis examiner, Harout Akededian, University of New England, Australia, 2016.
- Doctoral thesis examiner, Julie Shackleford, University College London, 2015.
- Master’s Thesis Examiner, Mette Lundsfryd Heide-Jørgensen, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden 2015.
- Doctoral thesis examiner, Susannah Kennedy, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, 2004.
PROMOTION REVIEWS
- Northwestern University
- Simon Fraser University
- Fordham University
- Georgetown University
MANUSCRIPT REVIEWS
Middle East Critique, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024; Arab Media and Society, 2007, 2009, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2024 (2); Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2022; International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2019, 2020, 2014; Journal of Material Culture, 1998, 2020; History and Anthropology, 2018; Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI), 2018; Rutgers University Press, 2018; Middle East Journal, 2013, 2018; Cyberorient, 2017, 2019; PBS, POV Community Engagement & Education Discussion Guide, Return to Homs, Media, Culture and Society, 2013; Anthropological Quarterly, 2012; Signs, 2012; Indiana University Press, 2010; City and Society, 2008; Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2008; Contemporary Studies in Society and History, 2006; Transnational Broadcasting Studies, 2005; Cultural Anthropology, 1996
RESEARCH ADVISORY BOARDS
Advisory Board Member, research project, “Archiving the Future: Re-Collections of Syria in War and Peace,” University of Copenhagen, February 2020-January 2023.
Advisory Board Member, research project, “Mediatized Diaspora: Contentious Politics among Arab Media Users in Europe.” University of Copenhagen. Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, Denmark, September 1, 2018-August 21, 2021.
International Advisory Board member, research project, “Sectarianism in the Wake of the Arab Revolts,” Velux Foundation, Denmark, administered through Aarhus University, Denmark, May 2016-January 2019.
OUTREACH
- Discussion guest, Muslim Student Association, High School of American Studies, New York, November 2019
- Podcast presentation on Syria, Baythorn Public School, Ontario, Canada, November 2018
- Guest presenter, “The Syrian Conflict,” Metropolitan Montessori School, New York, November 2015
- Advisory Board Member, Polycultural Institute, Chicago, IL, 2020 - present
- Advisory Board Member, Syrian Music Preservation Initiative, New York, 2018 - present
- Board of Directors Member, Alwan for the Arts, New York City, NY, 2005-2007
BOOK TALKS
Of Middle Eastern Television Drama
- Sorbonne Nord. Paris, France, 2024.
Of Syria From Reform to Revolt
- Lehman College Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies and Leonard Lief Library, series “Cultural Conversations about Syria,” March 2016
- Istanbul Policy Center, Sabanci University, Istanbul, June 2016
- Pages Bookstore, Istanbul, June 2016
Of A New Old Damascus
- British Council, Damascus, Syria, July 2007
- Alwan for the Arts, New York, June 2006
TEACHING
Doctoral Students
- Busra Unluonen, Ph.D. Candidate, Program in Anthropology, Graduate Center, doctoral advisor
- Agnes Eshak, Ph.D. Candidate, Program in Anthropology, Graduate Center, doctoral advisor
- Douaa Sheet, Ph.D. Candidate, Program in Anthropology, Graduate Center, doctoral committee member, graduated 2021
- Ashley Marinaccio, Ph.D. Candidate, Program in Theater and Performance, the Graduate Center, doctoral committee member, graduated 2024.
- Sarah Mady (archaeology subdiscipline), Graduate Center, doctoral committee member, graduated 2024
- Theodor Maghrak (archaeology subdiscipline), Graduate Center, doctoral committee member
- Christine Crone, Ph.D. Candidate, Islamic Studies, University of Copenhagen, co- supervisor, successfully completed May 2017
- Rayya El Zein, Doctoral Program in Theater and Performance, the Graduate Center, doctoral committee member (successfully defended May 2016)
M.A. student advising
- Mohammed Elfeky, MA program in Middle Eastern Studies, MEMEAC, the Graduate Center, CUNY, thesis advisor, 2022
- Nasrien Hamid, MA program in Middle Eastern Studies, MEMEAC, the Graduate Center, CUNY, thesis advisor, 2018-2019
- Mustafa Karahamad, M.A. Candidate, Department of History, University of Siegen, Germany, external examiner, 2018
- Elizabeth Cummings, MA program in Middle Eastern Studies, MEMEAC, the Graduate Center, CUNY, thesis advisor, 2016
- Adam Almqvist, Lund University, Sweden, thesis advisor 2011-2012
Undergraduate courses (recurrent)
- Anthropology of Media
- Anthropology of Cities
- Introduction to Middle Eastern Studies
- Ethnography of the Middle East
- Anthropological Perspectives on Women and Men
- Mediated Culture in the Middle East
- Ethnicity in America: Arab Americans
- The Middle East through Urban and Popular Culture
- Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Courses taught at the CUNY Graduate Center
- Approaches to Middle Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern Studies MA, fall 2016, spring 2019, spring 2020, spring 2021
- Core Course in Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology Doctoral Program, fall 2017
- Anthropology and Media, Anthropology Doctoral Program, spring 2017, spring 2021
- New Ethnographic Writing on the Middle East, Middle Eastern Studies MA (cross-listed with Anthropology) fall 2014, fall 2021, Fall 2023
- Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology (cultural segment), Doctoral Program in Anthropology, spring 2013 and fall 2014
- Methods Module: Media as Source and Subject, Anthropology Doctoral Program, spring 2013
- Mediated Culture in the Middle East, Middle Eastern Studies MA (cross-listed with Anthropology) spring 2013
Other
- Instructor, PhD and Research Course, “Media and Visual Cultures in Contemporary Arab Societies” Sponsored by the Danish Institute in Cairo (DEDI), the Department for Cross Cultural and Regional studies at Copenhagen University, and the Project for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Danish Institute in Cairo, Egypt, June 2015
- Instructor, “Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies Ph.D. Course, “Secularism, Nationalism and Religion: The Formation of the Future Middle East,” Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, Turkey, October 2012
- Instructor, International PhD and Research School, “Arab TV Fiction and Entertainment Industries,” keynote lecture, “Syrian Television Drama: An Enduring Tradition of Social Realism,” Danish Institute in Damascus, Syria, November 2010
Courses taught at Lebanese American University, Beirut
- A Clash of Civilizations?: The Political Uses of Culture, MA seminar in politics, spring 2004
- Introduction to Gender Studies, Lebanese American University 2003
- Introduction to Sociology, Lebanese American University 2002, 2003
Courses taught at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
- Ethnography of the Near and Middle East, BA and MA-levels, spring 2003
University of Oxford
- Tutorials in sociological and anthropological theory and methodology, urban anthropology, 1990-1992
