Visualizing Political Struggle in the Middle East

Autumn 2012 | Public lectures and events | Audio and pdf

Contributor(s): Lina Khatib | Marking the publication of Lina Khatib's latest book Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle, this lecture focuses on the evolution of political expression and activism in the Middle East over the past decade, highlighting the visual dimension of power struggles between citizens and leaders in Arab countries undergoing transition. Lina Khatib is the co-founding head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, a multidisciplinary policy-oriented research program established in 2010 to study democratic change in the Arab world. She is an expert on Middle East politics and its intersection with social, cultural and media issues. At Stanford, she leads research projects on political and economic reform, as well as on political activism in the Arab world, and the political participation of minorities. She is the author of Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World, (2006), and Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond (2008), and a founding co-editor of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. Her book Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle (IB Tauris, 2012) examines the visual dimension of power struggles between states, political leaders, political parties, and citizens in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iran, and Lebanon. She is also a consultant and frequent commentator on the Middle East in the media with appearances on CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, and several media outlets around the globe. Dr Aitemad Muhanna is a research fellow at the LSE's Middle East Center pursuing post-doctoral research on gender, religion and sustainable human development in Gaza.