ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is (re)negotiated in the af... more ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is (re)negotiated in the aftermath of a protracted civil war. More particularly, I investigate the nostalgic underpinnings of Lebanese popular culture, mainly Ziad Doueiry’s hit film, West Beyrouth and the revered singer, Fairouz, to examine what their popularity and deep resonance within Lebanese society reveal about the collective, affective negotiations of living with loss in the Lebanese context. I situate these works within a larger discourse on nostalgia in postwar Lebanon to complicate earlier assertions about nostalgia as an uncritical and insidious affective mode operating largely in service of unjust power relations. While I do not dismiss these earlier theorizations, I argue that an attention to the consumption and circulation of Lebanese popular culture reveals how nostalgia is not only fundamental to the way power operates as a top-down phenomenon, but it is simultaneously embedded within a more diffuse network of narratives and discourses that shape national publics and that unfold as affective negotiations of loss.
ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is (re)negotiated in the af... more ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is (re)negotiated in the aftermath of a protracted civil war. More particularly, I investigate the nostalgic underpinnings of Lebanese popular culture, mainly Ziad Doueiry’s hit film, West Beyrouth and the revered singer, Fairouz, to examine what their popularity and deep resonance within Lebanese society reveal about the collective, affective negotiations of living with loss in the Lebanese context. I situate these works within a larger discourse on nostalgia in postwar Lebanon to complicate earlier assertions about nostalgia as an uncritical and insidious affective mode operating largely in service of unjust power relations. While I do not dismiss these earlier theorizations, I argue that an attention to the consumption and circulation of Lebanese popular culture reveals how nostalgia is not only fundamental to the way power operates as a top-down phenomenon, but it is simultaneously embedded within a more diffuse network of narratives and discourses that shape national publics and that unfold as affective negotiations of loss.
In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is
(re)negotiated in the aftermath o... more In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is (re)negotiated in the aftermath of a protracted civil war. More particularly, I investigate the nostalgic underpinnings of Lebanese popular culture, mainly Ziad Doueiry’s hit film, West Beyrouth and the revered singer, Fairouz, to examine what their popularity and deep resonance within Lebanese society reveal about the collective, affective negotiations of living with loss in the Lebanese context. I situate these works within a larger discourse on nostalgia in postwar Lebanon to complicate earlier assertions about nostalgia as an uncritical and insidious affective mode operating largely in service of unjust power relations. While I do not dismiss these earlier theorizations, I argue that an attention to the consumption and circulation of Lebanese popular culture reveals how nostalgia is not only fundamental to the way power operates as a top-down phenomenon, but it is simultaneously embedded within a more diffuse network of narratives and discourses that shape national publics and that unfold as affective negotiations of loss.
This conference has capacious aims! In and across the diverse practices and studies of affect, ho... more This conference has capacious aims! In and across the diverse practices and studies of affect, how might we continue to 'find room' or 'make space' and under what circumstances might such a framing for affect study be problematic? This conference will be open to all (students, faculty, non-academics, and others) while emphasizing the crucial role of graduate students and early career researchers in shaping the scholarship in affect study.
This article analyzes two post-civil war Lebanese films, Ghasan Salhab’s Terra Incognita and Khal... more This article analyzes two post-civil war Lebanese films, Ghasan Salhab’s Terra Incognita and Khalil Joreige and Joanna Hadjithomas’s A Perfect Day, to examine how the conditions and valences of a particular sociocultural moment register affectively and mobilize the investments that inform memory making in the Lebanese context. In particular, I study these works as embodiments of an emerging structure of feeling specific to post-civil war Beirut, in which the haunting remnants of an unresolved violent past intersect with the neoliberal imperatives to propel Lebanon into a global market. In this sense, I build upon an exclusive concern with ‘pastness,’ which often dominates discussions about post-conflict and post-colonial societies, in order to consider how an unfinished traumatic past intersects with more contemporary oppressions and the affective dimension of these intersections. Through a series of visual motifs and audio techniques, Terra Incognita and A Perfect Day track the ways that forces from the past encounter a wholesale embrace of neoliberalism and commercialism to create a kind of affective impasse that plays out either in depressed apathy or excessive indulgence.
ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is (re)negotiated in the af... more ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is (re)negotiated in the aftermath of a protracted civil war. More particularly, I investigate the nostalgic underpinnings of Lebanese popular culture, mainly Ziad Doueiry’s hit film, West Beyrouth and the revered singer, Fairouz, to examine what their popularity and deep resonance within Lebanese society reveal about the collective, affective negotiations of living with loss in the Lebanese context. I situate these works within a larger discourse on nostalgia in postwar Lebanon to complicate earlier assertions about nostalgia as an uncritical and insidious affective mode operating largely in service of unjust power relations. While I do not dismiss these earlier theorizations, I argue that an attention to the consumption and circulation of Lebanese popular culture reveals how nostalgia is not only fundamental to the way power operates as a top-down phenomenon, but it is simultaneously embedded within a more diffuse network of narratives and discourses that shape national publics and that unfold as affective negotiations of loss.
ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is (re)negotiated in the af... more ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is (re)negotiated in the aftermath of a protracted civil war. More particularly, I investigate the nostalgic underpinnings of Lebanese popular culture, mainly Ziad Doueiry’s hit film, West Beyrouth and the revered singer, Fairouz, to examine what their popularity and deep resonance within Lebanese society reveal about the collective, affective negotiations of living with loss in the Lebanese context. I situate these works within a larger discourse on nostalgia in postwar Lebanon to complicate earlier assertions about nostalgia as an uncritical and insidious affective mode operating largely in service of unjust power relations. While I do not dismiss these earlier theorizations, I argue that an attention to the consumption and circulation of Lebanese popular culture reveals how nostalgia is not only fundamental to the way power operates as a top-down phenomenon, but it is simultaneously embedded within a more diffuse network of narratives and discourses that shape national publics and that unfold as affective negotiations of loss.
In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is
(re)negotiated in the aftermath o... more In this article, I explore how national belonging in Lebanon is (re)negotiated in the aftermath of a protracted civil war. More particularly, I investigate the nostalgic underpinnings of Lebanese popular culture, mainly Ziad Doueiry’s hit film, West Beyrouth and the revered singer, Fairouz, to examine what their popularity and deep resonance within Lebanese society reveal about the collective, affective negotiations of living with loss in the Lebanese context. I situate these works within a larger discourse on nostalgia in postwar Lebanon to complicate earlier assertions about nostalgia as an uncritical and insidious affective mode operating largely in service of unjust power relations. While I do not dismiss these earlier theorizations, I argue that an attention to the consumption and circulation of Lebanese popular culture reveals how nostalgia is not only fundamental to the way power operates as a top-down phenomenon, but it is simultaneously embedded within a more diffuse network of narratives and discourses that shape national publics and that unfold as affective negotiations of loss.
This conference has capacious aims! In and across the diverse practices and studies of affect, ho... more This conference has capacious aims! In and across the diverse practices and studies of affect, how might we continue to 'find room' or 'make space' and under what circumstances might such a framing for affect study be problematic? This conference will be open to all (students, faculty, non-academics, and others) while emphasizing the crucial role of graduate students and early career researchers in shaping the scholarship in affect study.
This article analyzes two post-civil war Lebanese films, Ghasan Salhab’s Terra Incognita and Khal... more This article analyzes two post-civil war Lebanese films, Ghasan Salhab’s Terra Incognita and Khalil Joreige and Joanna Hadjithomas’s A Perfect Day, to examine how the conditions and valences of a particular sociocultural moment register affectively and mobilize the investments that inform memory making in the Lebanese context. In particular, I study these works as embodiments of an emerging structure of feeling specific to post-civil war Beirut, in which the haunting remnants of an unresolved violent past intersect with the neoliberal imperatives to propel Lebanon into a global market. In this sense, I build upon an exclusive concern with ‘pastness,’ which often dominates discussions about post-conflict and post-colonial societies, in order to consider how an unfinished traumatic past intersects with more contemporary oppressions and the affective dimension of these intersections. Through a series of visual motifs and audio techniques, Terra Incognita and A Perfect Day track the ways that forces from the past encounter a wholesale embrace of neoliberalism and commercialism to create a kind of affective impasse that plays out either in depressed apathy or excessive indulgence.
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(re)negotiated in the aftermath of a protracted civil war. More
particularly, I investigate the nostalgic underpinnings of Lebanese
popular culture, mainly Ziad Doueiry’s hit film, West Beyrouth and
the revered singer, Fairouz, to examine what their popularity and
deep resonance within Lebanese society reveal about the
collective, affective negotiations of living with loss in the
Lebanese context. I situate these works within a larger discourse
on nostalgia in postwar Lebanon to complicate earlier assertions
about nostalgia as an uncritical and insidious affective mode
operating largely in service of unjust power relations. While I do
not dismiss these earlier theorizations, I argue that an attention to
the consumption and circulation of Lebanese popular culture
reveals how nostalgia is not only fundamental to the way power
operates as a top-down phenomenon, but it is simultaneously
embedded within a more diffuse network of narratives and
discourses that shape national publics and that unfold as affective
negotiations of loss.
Joreige and Joanna Hadjithomas’s A Perfect Day, to examine how the conditions and valences of a
particular sociocultural moment register affectively and mobilize the investments that inform memory
making in the Lebanese context. In particular, I study these works as embodiments of an emerging
structure of feeling specific to post-civil war Beirut, in which the haunting remnants of an unresolved
violent past intersect with the neoliberal imperatives to propel Lebanon into a global market. In this sense,
I build upon an exclusive concern with ‘pastness,’ which often dominates discussions about post-conflict
and post-colonial societies, in order to consider how an unfinished traumatic past intersects with more
contemporary oppressions and the affective dimension of these intersections. Through a series of visual
motifs and audio techniques, Terra Incognita and A Perfect Day track the ways that forces from the past
encounter a wholesale embrace of neoliberalism and commercialism to create a kind of affective impasse
that plays out either in depressed apathy or excessive indulgence.
Articles
(re)negotiated in the aftermath of a protracted civil war. More
particularly, I investigate the nostalgic underpinnings of Lebanese
popular culture, mainly Ziad Doueiry’s hit film, West Beyrouth and
the revered singer, Fairouz, to examine what their popularity and
deep resonance within Lebanese society reveal about the
collective, affective negotiations of living with loss in the
Lebanese context. I situate these works within a larger discourse
on nostalgia in postwar Lebanon to complicate earlier assertions
about nostalgia as an uncritical and insidious affective mode
operating largely in service of unjust power relations. While I do
not dismiss these earlier theorizations, I argue that an attention to
the consumption and circulation of Lebanese popular culture
reveals how nostalgia is not only fundamental to the way power
operates as a top-down phenomenon, but it is simultaneously
embedded within a more diffuse network of narratives and
discourses that shape national publics and that unfold as affective
negotiations of loss.
Joreige and Joanna Hadjithomas’s A Perfect Day, to examine how the conditions and valences of a
particular sociocultural moment register affectively and mobilize the investments that inform memory
making in the Lebanese context. In particular, I study these works as embodiments of an emerging
structure of feeling specific to post-civil war Beirut, in which the haunting remnants of an unresolved
violent past intersect with the neoliberal imperatives to propel Lebanon into a global market. In this sense,
I build upon an exclusive concern with ‘pastness,’ which often dominates discussions about post-conflict
and post-colonial societies, in order to consider how an unfinished traumatic past intersects with more
contemporary oppressions and the affective dimension of these intersections. Through a series of visual
motifs and audio techniques, Terra Incognita and A Perfect Day track the ways that forces from the past
encounter a wholesale embrace of neoliberalism and commercialism to create a kind of affective impasse
that plays out either in depressed apathy or excessive indulgence.