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Christa Salamandra

Christa Salamandra is Professor of Anthropology at Lehman College and The Graduate Center, The City University of New York. Her work explores visual, mediated and urban culture in the Arab Middle East. She is the author of A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria (Indiana University Press, 2004), and co-editor of Syria from Reform to Revolt (Syracuse University Press, 2015). Her manuscript-in-progress, Waiting for Light: Syrian Television Drama Production in the Satellite Era, explores the cultural politics of contemporary fictional TV creation. Forthcoming from Indiana University Press, this book draws on extensive fieldwork in Syria, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates.

BOOK EXCERPT | Syria’s Drama Outpouring from Syria from Reform to Revolt, Vol. 2

Enduring Commitment Syrian drama has oscillated between accommodating and challenging persistent authoritarianism, the Islamic tendency, and the neoliberal moment. In addition to sensational thrillers and costume dramas, Syrians continue to produce works that harken back to an earlier era of Arab cultural production. Realist dramas join sociopolitical satires in critiquing …

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London’s Arab Media and the Construction of Arabness

For more than twenty years-since the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War in 1976-London has served as the unparalleled centre of Arabic-language media. This study, drawn from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in London's Arab media institutions, challenges two contentions emerging from recent academic literature on transnationalism and new media technologies. Firstly, …

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