Leila Sibai

Haunting Assad's Syria

By looking into instances of state violence and dissidence in Syria since 2011, ‘Haunting Assad's Syria’ proposes to explore the relationship between body, voice, dissent, and state violence, and the role of language in registering related events, conditions, and imaginaries. 

This research project looks into governmental practices which have, as their rationale, the production of uniform political subjectivities and examine the mechanisms through which they hold the potential to nullify dissenting voices and generate dominant narratives. In translating to and from Arabic, this research practice attempts to develop linguistic and performative strategies to challenge established power dynamics and activate the transformative potential of language in connecting the self and the collective. Chase-AHRC Studentship.