Hosted by the Department of English

Location: Lani Hall - Herb Alpert School of Music Register here to attend

Scenes of bodily humiliation and mutilation have been screaming from our screens for more than two years. Working through and against the grain of this obvious, ubiquitous archive, Puar and Srouji excavate the longue durée of debilitation in Gaza and conversely, also foreground the praxis of “re-member-ment” that highlight Palestinian determination to become differently whole.

Bio:
Jasbir K. Puar is Distinguished Faculty of Arts Professor in the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia, Extraordinary Professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa, and Professor Emerita at Rutgers University where she was faculty in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department for 23 years. Puar is the author of the award-winning books: The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability (2017), which has been translated into Spanish and is forthcoming in Portuguese, and Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007), available in French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and re-issued as an expanded version for its 10th anniversary (2017). Her articles have been published in journals such as Social Text and South Atlantic Quarterly, mainstream venues such as Al-Jazeera and The Guardian, and translated into more than 20 languages.

Dr. Puar is also co-author of exhibitions for the Sharjah Architecture Triennial (2019) and the Sharjah Art Biennial (2023). In 2019 she received the Kessler Award from the Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies (CLAGS) at CUNY, which recognizes lifetime achievement in and impact on queer research and organizing.

Dima Srouji is a Palestinian architect and visual artist exploring the ground as a deep space of rich cultural weight and a space for potential collective repair. She was the Jameel Fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2022-2023 and currently leading MA City Design studio Underground Palestine at the Royal College of Art in London. Her work is part of the permanent collections at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Institut du Monde Arabe, Corning Museum of Glass, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, and The Sharjah Art Foundation.