Biography

In January 2011 I completed my MA Arabic Language and Culture (cum laude) and MPhil Literary Studies (cum laude) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) with a thesis on novelistic representations of homes in war-torn Beirut. I studied for several months in Cairo (NVIC) and Beirut (AUB and USJ). As a member of the Cities Project, I am currently working as a PhD fellow at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA).

Research

My PhD research project is provisionally titled "Regenerative Beirut: Urban Imaginaries of Waste, Surfaces and Dead Bodies" and investigates the ways in which a narrative of urban regeneration has permeated intellectual and artistic discourse today. The narrative is closely related to the permanent imminence of violence that has been inscribed in Beirut’s post-war geography. Issues of concern are (re)construction and superficiality; political volatility and temporality; wastefulness and disposability; ruins, dead bodies and memory.

This research project is under the supervision of Prof. dr. Christoph Lindner and Dr. Richard van Leeuwen.

Publications

J. Naeff (2014) Absence in the Mirror: Beirut's Urban Identity in the Aftermath of Civil War. Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 18(5): 549-558.

I co-edited a special issue of the peer-reviewed European Journal of Cultural Studies for which I also co-wrote the editorial introduction Questioning Urban Modernity :

P. Dibazar, C.P. Lindner, M.M. Meissner & J.A. Naeff (2013) Questioning Urban Modernity. European Journal of Cultural Studies 16(6): 643–658. 

Conference Papers

"Imagining Imminent Erasure in Beirut" in MESA's 48th Annual Meeting, Middle East Studies Association, Washington, November 22-25, 2014.

"Beirut, a Disposable City" in Global Garbage, Excess, Waste and Abandonment in the Contemporary City, Centre for the Study of European and North African Relations (SENAR), University of London Institute in Paris, June 12-13, 2014.

"Replicas and the Narration of a Future Oriented Past" in Littérature, art et monde contemporain : récits, histoire, mémoire , Université Saint Joseph, Beirut, May 16-17, 2014.

“Dead Bodies and the Precarious Present” in Levantine Chronotopes, University of Oslo, September 2-3, 2013. 

“Beirut and the Mirror” in War, Memory, Amnesia: Francophone Perspectives on Postwar Lebanon, University of Leeds, June 6-7, 2013.

 “Temporariness and Architecture in Post-civil-war Beirut” in Research Domain Heritage and Memory of Conflict, University of Amsterdam, May 7, 2013.

 “Temporality in Post-War Beirut: Repetition, Simultaneity and Delay” in Giving Meaning to the Passage of Time Discourses of History and Progress in Beirut from the 19th Century to the Present, Netherlands Institute Beirut and Orient-Institut Beirut, September 18-19, 2012. 

Invited Lectures

"The Disembodied and the Disappeared: Imagining Martyrs and Missing Persons in Lebanese Art, Cinema and Literature," double lecture with Professor Marwan Kraidy (University of Pennsylvania) as part of the Amsterdam Middle Eastern Studies Lecture Series, University of Amsterdam, September 23, 2014.

"Beirut's Suspended Now and the Phoenix," MOS/LUCIS Lecture Series, University of Leiden, October 23, 2014. 

Teaching

Full courses:

HvA, BA course, “Arabic language course”, Fall 2014.

UvA, BA course (co-teaching), “Amsterdam Creative City: Media, Arts and Culture”, Summer 2014.

Guest lectures:

HvA, BA level, Minor Arabic, “Islam en verscheidenheid” (Islam and Diversity), 27 May and 19 November 2014.

UvA, BA level, Islamic Art & Architecture, student support and supervision during exhibition visit, 7 May 2014.

VU, MA level, Media and Space, “Architectural Impressions in Urban Space”, 7 May 2014.

HvA, BA level, Minor Arabic, “Culturele uitwisseling tussen de Arabische wereld en het Westen” (Cultural Exchange between the Arab World and the West), 1 April and 5 November 2014.

Conference Organizing

Co-organizer, "Giving Meaning to the Passage of Time: Discourses of History and Progress in Beirut from the 19th Century to the Present", Netherlands Institute in Beirut and the Orient-Institut Beirut, September 18-19, 2012.

 Co-organizer, "Questioning Urban Modernity", UvA and ARCAM architectuurcentrum Amsterdam, May 18, 2012.

Academic Service

Member, ASCA Cities Group, University of Amsterdam.

Member, Steering Committee, Amsterdam Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, 2012-present.

Co-organizer, Cities Seminar, 2011-present.

Co-organizer, Cities reading group, 2011-present.

Co-organizer, Opening Event Amsterdam Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, November 14, 2013.

Co-organizer, Masterclass "Syria: Culture in Defiance", Amsterdam Centre for Middle Eastern Studies and the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, October 18, 2012.

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