Join us as we interview Associate Professor of Sociology Yasser Munif on our afikra Conversations series on June 10.
Date: Thursday, June 10
Time: 12PM NYC | 5PM London | 7PM Beirut
Hosted By: Malek Rasamny, Researcher and Filmmaker.
Yasser Munif teaches courses on Race Relations, Urban Sociology, Nationalism, Political Economy, and Middle Eastern Politics and Society. He specializes in colonial history, racial identities, and the production of postcolonial space in marginal sites in France and its colonial territories. His research engages with Foucauldian and Fanonian perspectives and is primarily concerned with how French colonial rule designed urban spaces to shape lives and identities. He explores the traveling (in time and space) of knowledge within the colonial circuit through archival and ethnographic investigation. His more recent research explores the importance of urban settings in shaping national identities during the Arab revolts (Egypt and Syria). More specifically, by investigating the confluence of arts and culture and urban spaces, it analyzes the making and un-making of national identities. While labor strikes, marches, demonstrations, and civil disobedience were vital in toppling authoritarian regimes in several Arab countries, the investigation explores the role of artistic transgressions within public spaces in challenging the deference and violence of totalitarian regimes. He is currently working on several projects, including a book chapter on the relevance of Frantz Fanon in the context of the Syrian Uprising.