|
|
Newsletter 7, September 2019
Events and News
Recent Events
"Living in the Mediterranean: Mobilities and Performances in and across Lebanon"
Friday, 11 October 2019, 6-7.30 PM,Orient-Institut Beirut
 This Salon Conversation with Chaza Charafeddine, Charif Majdalani, and Mounira al-Solh was part of the workshop "Questioning the Mediterranean: (Self-) Representations from the Southern Shore, ca. 1800 –2000" of the DFG-research network “The Modern Mediterranean: Dynamics of a World Region 1800 | 2000” that took place at the OIB. The workshop focused on the perspectives from the Southern shore concerning the concept of the Mediterranean in theory and practice. In the Salon Conversation, the Lebanese artists debated their works on the Mediterranean, Lebanon and migration.
Panel Discussion | "Cultural Heritage in Conflict: Perspectives from Art and Literature"
Tuesday, 1 October 2019, 7:30-8:30 PM, Orient-Institut Beirut
 In this Panel Discussion, Hoda Barakat, Ali Cherri, Abed Al Kadiri and Alfred Tarazi talked about Literature and Art from different points of view. This event was part of the International Conference “Destruction/ (Re-) Construction” of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA). The conference focused on the cycle of creation and decay of architectural heritage from a transcultural and diachronic perspective.
"The New Spatial Contract: Migration and the Invisible Barriers in Cities Today" - Antonis Vradis
Thursday, 05 September 2019, 6-7:30 pm, Orient-Institut Beirut
 The Public Research Seminar by Antonis Vradis was concerned with the invisible barriers in cities that separate spaces and lead to the exclusion of different groups, based on examples from Exarcheia in Athens, the Mare Favela Complex in Rio de Janeiro and other cities, he explained the social construction of barriers and the creation of imaginary spaces. Vradis suggests that we need a new spatial contract (similar to the social contract) that brings together migrant integration and urban public space, in order to create integral public spaces in cities.
Antonis Vradis grew up in Patras, Greece’s port city and gateway to the West: he has been fascinated by people moving in and through cities ever since. He is Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow at Loughborough, Associate Editor at Political Geography and Editor at CITY.
“Critical Ecologies: Aesthetic Practices and the Archive” - Liliana Gómez
Thursday, 29 August, 6-7:30 pm, Orient-Institut Beirut
 The OIB participated with an evening lecture and exhibition opening in the Transregional Academy of the “Forum Transregionale Studien” (TRAFO). The lecture by Liliana Gómez focused on the topic of landscapes as archives and was concerned with the material and metaphorical transformation of landscapes in the context of conflicts. Gómez explained how ‘critical ecologies’ can address forms of political violence and radical transformation. The exhibition with the title “Contested Landscapes, Emerging Archives” included a video installation about the Lebanese road from Syria to Israel, another video and sound installation exploring the mourning and loss as lived experiences of the Colombian armed conflict and one on South Africa. It was shown at the OIB from 29 August to 13 September.
Liliana Gomez is an SNSF-professor and directs the research project «Contested Amnesia and Dissonant Narratives in the Global South. Post-Conflict in Literature, Art, and Emergent Archives» at the University of Zurich. She is an affiliated researcher at the OIB.
OIB's Activities
Inventory of the OIB Library
 For the first time in living memory, the OIB is conducting an inventory of its library, probably the second largest in Lebanon. With its massive holdings in several library- and stock-rooms, this is a collective effort with all members of the institute assisting the library staff in this huge endeavour. So far, more than 60,000 records have been checked and some treasures have been found during the closure of the library in the summer. The OIB library will remain closed on Thursdays so that the inventory can be carried on. To be continued…
Construction of a wheelchair ramp at the OIB
 The construction works for a new wheelchair ramp at the OIB are finished. We now have a disability access to our institute, including the library, in accordance with German and Lebanese law.
Publications
Beiruter Texte und Studien (BTS)
BTS 114
The Intermediate Worlds of Angels - Islamic Representations of Celestial Beings in Transcultural Contexts edited by Sara Kuehn, Stefan Leder and Hans-Peter Poekel.
The volume brings together the most recent research on angels and angelology in Islam. Contributions shed light on a range of topics, from pre-Islamic precursors in different religious traditions, to scholarly debates over the medieval period. An extensive introduction offers an overview regarding the current state of research.
BTS Band 124
Maktaba madrasiyya fī Ḥalab al-ʿahd al-Uthmānī – al-daftar al-mujaddad li-kutub waqf ʿUthmān Bāshā al-Dawrikī, by Said Aljoumani.
Part 1 of this volume offers a study of an endowed library in nineteenth century Aleppo, based on the endowment deed and list of books set into their historical context. Part 2 consists of editions of the documents. A preface by Konrad Hirschler situates the study in the wider research field on book cultures of the Middle East.
Orient-Institut Studies (OIS)
OIS 5: "Reconstructing Neighborhoods of War"
New Blog Series in Orient-Institut Studies (OIS)
The blog series investigates post-war reconstructions with a lens on the social fabric of neighborhoods. Taking a global comparative approach, the discussion brings together the work of academics and those professionally involved in reconstructions, including activists, architects and city planners. The blog entries originate from the presentations of the international, interdiscplinary conference ‘Reconstructing Neighborhoods of War’ at the OIB (29 Nov to 1 Dec 2018), convened by Birgit Schäbler, director of the OIB.
https://www.orient-institut.org/publications/ois-orient-institut-studies/details/ois-5-reconstructing-neighborhoods-of-war/
People
New Research Associate at the OIB
 Dr. Abdallah Soufan is a Research Associate at OIB since September 2019. He received his BS, BA, and MA from the American University of Beirut, where he worked also as an Instructor of Islamic Thought. He has recently received his PhD from Georgetown University. His research investigates dichotomies in classical Islamic thought.
Six new visiting fellows at the OIB
 Dr. Maria Holt (Hans-Robert Roemer Fellow) is a Reader in Middle East Politics at the University of Westminster (London). Her research interests include gender and politics in the MENA region, women, violence and conflict in the Middle East, women and Islamic resistance, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and the British colonial period in south Yemen. Her latest publications are 'Everyday Practices of Sacrifice: A Case Study of Palestinian Women', Gender and Research, 19:1 (2018); 'Islam and Resistance in the Middle East: A Methodology of Muslim Struggle and the Impact on Women', in Routledge Handbook of Middle East Politics, edited by Larbi Sadiki (forthcoming 2019).
 Hazim Alabdullah is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Erfurt. He received a BA in English Language and Literature (University of Aleppo) and MA degree in Literature (University of Erfurt). Between 2015-2018, he worked as research assistant at the Kunsthistorische Institut in Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut) within the DFG project “Typographia Medicea”.
 Dr. Monika Halkort is a post-doctoral researcher whose work transcends the fields of media and cultural studies, political ecology, feminist STS and post-humanist studies. During her fellowship at the OIB she will explore the intersectional dynamics of racialization, de-humanization and enclosure in environmental sensing and earth observation, focusing on the historically specific context of the Mediterranean sea. The main objective of this study is to unpack the new regimes of bio-legitimacy that emerge from the ever denser convergence of social, biological and machine intelligences and to assess how they recalibrate ‘zones of being’ and ‘non-being’ (Franz Fanon) as the key locus of oppression, alienation and ontological displacement characteristic of modern coloniality.
 Célia Hassani is a PhD candidate from Aix- Marseille Université (France). Her research focuses on cultural policies in Lebanon and the role of the art intermediaries from a cultural and societal point of view. She also has professional experience in the cultural field in Lebanon and the MENA region, mainly drafting cultural policies recommendations and organizing capacity building activities, dedicated to cultural operators in the region.
 China Sajadian is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate Center. With support from the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, her dissertation research examines agrarian labor relations in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley from an ethnographic and historical perspective. She holds a BA in Government from Smith College and an MA in Anthropology from Columbia University.
 Stefan Tarnowski is a PhD candidate at Columbia University’s Anthropology Department, Institute of Comparative Literature and Society, and Institute for Comparative Media. His ethnographic fieldwork on Syrian media activists was funded by a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation 2018-19, and his most recent publication is a translation of and introduction to Dork Zabunyan's The Insistence of Struggle (IF Publications, 2019).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
