In his talk Tarek El-Ariss explores the way affective modes of confrontation and online circulation shape and engender contemporary knowledge production and critiques of power in the Arab world. Focusing on a new generation of activists and authors, and leakers and hackers from the region and beyond, El-Ariss connects Wikileaks to The Arabian Nights, Twitter to mystical revelation, cyberattacks to pre-Islamic tribal raids, and digital activism to the affective scene-making of Arab popular culture.

Tarek El-Ariss is Associate Professor and Chair of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth. He is the author of Trials of Arab Modernity: Literary Affects and the New Political (Fordham, 2013) and Leaks, Hacks, and Scandals: Arab Culture in the Digital Age (Princeton, 2018), and editor of The Arab Renaissance: A Bilingual Anthology of the Nahda (MLA, 2018).

Jared McCormick is the Director of Graduate Studies at Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, NYU. He was most recently a Visiting Assistant Professor in Global Studies/Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology, and a secondary degree in Critical Media Practices, at Harvard University (2016). His research centers on issues of mobility, sexuality/sensuality, and imaginations of place in the Middle East. Jared is also the co-director/founder of marra.tein, an initiative that encourages innovative thought and dialogue by hosting researchers/artists at a dedicated residency space in Beirut, Lebanon.

We have discounted copies ($20) of Leaks, Hacks, and Scandals: Arab Culture in the Digital Age that can be purchased directly from James Ryan, please email him at James.Ryan@nyu.edu or make sure to purchase it on Friday at the event!

Check out the Facebook event here