Lunch and colloquium at 12:00pm

Room 300 Annenberg School for Communication

3620 Walnut Street

Space is limited, please RSVP here.

 

Abstract:

In slogans, protest songs, and social media since March 2011, Syrian activists continually call for “freedom, dignity, and justice” in response to egregious forms of state violence perpetrated by the Syrian regime. Of these demands, dignity, or karama, has become a framing device by which Syrian activists articulate creative new ways to negotiate the ongoing escalation of violence, sectarianism, and technologies of destruction. Examining civil resistance strategies since 2011, I will demonstrate how political performances, cultural production, and relief efforts not only construct dignity but constitute transformative processes by which social actors make sense of the practice of state violence, albeit in ways that often reinforce the conditions of such violence. The performative, productive, and signifying meanings of Syrian dignity are indicative of broader discursive formations of culture and violence in ways that invite consideration of issues of empowerment, otherness, collective action, and social conflict.

 

About the speaker:

Shayna Silverstein currently serves as a 2013-14 Mellon postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum. She received her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago. Her research examines Syrian popular dance music in relation to body, place, and nation and has received substantial support from Fulbright-IIE, University of Chicago, and US Department of Education. Shayna has published articles on theory, methods, and case studies in the fields of anthropology, ethnomusicology, and Middle East studies, and serves as an editor for Norient Journal. She has taught a broad range of undergraduate and graduate courses at Dartmouth College, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago. Shayna received her B.A. in History with distinction from Yale University.