UC Santa Cruz

My dissertation examines contemporary queer moving image works from Lebanon and its diaspora through an interdisciplinary approach using film and media studies, Middle Eastern studies, queer theory, and ethnography. The project demonstrates that queer Lebanese artists have forged a unique queer imaginary drawing from local and regional cultures, histories, and archives while adopting, contesting, and reimagining Western references. I argue that film and artworks from Lebanon help us understand Arab queer subjectivities in new complex ways. They produce speculative and utopian visions in response to local, regional and global contexts and realities, and they redefine the relation of the individual to the collective, be it at the communal, national, or international levels. The originality of my academic project is that it provides a new interdisciplinary approach to the study of queer Lebanese cinema that helps us understand queerness as a cultural, social and political force; Lebanon beyond a nation-centric approach; and cinema as an expanded moving image practice.Moving away from representations of gender, sexuality and identities and their politics, I focus on the alternative worlds that queer Lebanese artists construct in their work. This endeavor allows us to see their full potential as crucial interlocutors in the unfolding political, social and cultural discourses that animate national and regional public spheres.