This feminist semiotic study explores the folkloric imaginary of the jinn in the context of child... more This feminist semiotic study explores the folkloric imaginary of the jinn in the context of children’s and young adults’ Arab Gothic literature. Across the Middle East, the jinn is a common trope in literature, folklore and oral storytelling who, in diegetic terms, can manifest as the Gothic figure of an aging female, deranged older woman or succubus (known as sa’lawwa in Arabic). In this study, a novel feminist semiotic framework is developed to explore the extent to which the Gothic female succubus either haunts or liberates Arab girls’ coming-of-age fictions. This issue is addressed via a feminist semiotic reading of the narratives of Middle Eastern woman author @Ranoy7, exploring the appeal of her scary stories presented on YouTube. Findings reveal tacit fears, ambivalences and tensions embodied within the Arab Gothic sign of the aging female succubus or jinn. Overall, the research develops feminist insights into the semiotic motif of the female jinn and its role in constituting...
Dubai’s audacious architecture and photographic locations attract social media ‘influencers’ from... more Dubai’s audacious architecture and photographic locations attract social media ‘influencers’ from around the world. How has Dubai, once a small fishing village on the edge of a desert, morphed into a hyper-modern backdrop for this global phenomenon? How can we understand these interactions as our relationships with digital technologies undergo radical change?
This timely research-based study reveals how micro-celebrities and Dubai’s visible economies influence the evolution of the Emirate. Taking a cutting edge post-digital approach, underpinned by cultural studies and social media theory, Social Media Influencing in The City of Likes presents a series of unique case studies and demonstrates how Dubai is considered not only an illusion of unlimited indulgence but also a city dependent on the emerging infrastructure of visible economies, visual attractions, and ‘Instagrammable’ locations. Evaluating the cases of multiple influencers, from local to transnational content creators, Hurley reveals how residents, non-citizens and migrant workers surviving as influencers in the city of ‘likes.’
Providing a much-needed de-Westernising perspectives of Dubai’s social media influencing industry within the broader context of global platform capitalism, Social Media Influencing in The City of Likes offers an important contribution to the field of social media through illustrating visible economies in a city circuited by social media influencing.
Within the space of this collective image/text article, 18 photographic imagemakers and 4 respond... more Within the space of this collective image/text article, 18 photographic imagemakers and 4 respondents consider deeply and dialogically a quote from William Ayers’ 2016 book Teaching with Conscience in an Imperfect World: An Invitation. The resulting constellation of images and words (1) realizes a space within which works of art, specifically photographs, operate as centers of meaning to generate educational implications, and (2) theorizes a pedagogy that resists unilateral prescriptions and is instead anchored around openness, expansion, and individualization. The paper begins with a few short pieces from Sarah Pfohl, including an overview of Ayers’ book and ideas from writings on progressive education, object-based teaching and learning, and close/slow looking to position works of art as sites of rich meaning. While contemporary schooling often drives toward monolithic, numerical representations of the learners in its care, the article employs postdigital gestures to argue that learners have more in common with works of art than numbers, and thus, attention to artworks can open valuable implications for teaching and learning. The diverse group of images that follow offer an emerging portrait of teaching practice as a set of constantly shifting constellations moving across deep time and space from the intensely specific to the wide. Four texts think more about schools, education, and art. Finally, there is a postscript from Bill Ayers himself.
This chapter offers a postcolonial feminist reading of the works of the British-Italian travel wr... more This chapter offers a postcolonial feminist reading of the works of the British-Italian travel writer and adventuress Freya Stark (1893–1993), who travelled extensively throughout the Middle East and North African region. Her impact on travel writing as an unmarried European woman traveler, at the beginning of the twentieth century, without income, local connections or colonial rank is notable. This chapter provides close reading, through a postcolonial feminist lens, of two first edition volumes of Stark’s autobiographical travel books written during 1928–1939. The analysis explores the commercial nexus of Orientalism, which is the term that refers to Western depictions of the ‘Eastern’ world (Said E, Orientalism. Pantheon, New York, 1998). It discusses Stark’s work in relation to conceived reader expectations, as well as her distinctly ambivalent attitude to British colonialism and colonials. I suggest that Stark’s ambiguous role, as insider-outsider both within and between the Ar...
This feminist semiotic study explores the folkloric imaginary of the jinn in the context of child... more This feminist semiotic study explores the folkloric imaginary of the jinn in the context of children’s and young adults’ Arab Gothic literature. Across the Middle East, the jinn is a common trope in literature, folklore and oral storytelling who, in diegetic terms, can manifest as the Gothic figure of an aging female, deranged older woman or succubus (known as sa’lawwa in Arabic). In this study, a novel feminist semiotic framework is developed to explore the extent to which the Gothic female succubus either haunts or liberates Arab girls’ coming-of-age fictions. This issue is addressed via a feminist semiotic reading of the narratives of Middle Eastern woman author @Ranoy7, exploring the appeal of her scary stories presented on YouTube. Findings reveal tacit fears, ambivalences and tensions embodied within the Arab Gothic sign of the aging female succubus or jinn. Overall, the research develops feminist insights into the semiotic motif of the female jinn and its role in constituting...
Dubai’s audacious architecture and photographic locations attract social media ‘influencers’ from... more Dubai’s audacious architecture and photographic locations attract social media ‘influencers’ from around the world. How has Dubai, once a small fishing village on the edge of a desert, morphed into a hyper-modern backdrop for this global phenomenon? How can we understand these interactions as our relationships with digital technologies undergo radical change?
This timely research-based study reveals how micro-celebrities and Dubai’s visible economies influence the evolution of the Emirate. Taking a cutting edge post-digital approach, underpinned by cultural studies and social media theory, Social Media Influencing in The City of Likes presents a series of unique case studies and demonstrates how Dubai is considered not only an illusion of unlimited indulgence but also a city dependent on the emerging infrastructure of visible economies, visual attractions, and ‘Instagrammable’ locations. Evaluating the cases of multiple influencers, from local to transnational content creators, Hurley reveals how residents, non-citizens and migrant workers surviving as influencers in the city of ‘likes.’
Providing a much-needed de-Westernising perspectives of Dubai’s social media influencing industry within the broader context of global platform capitalism, Social Media Influencing in The City of Likes offers an important contribution to the field of social media through illustrating visible economies in a city circuited by social media influencing.
Within the space of this collective image/text article, 18 photographic imagemakers and 4 respond... more Within the space of this collective image/text article, 18 photographic imagemakers and 4 respondents consider deeply and dialogically a quote from William Ayers’ 2016 book Teaching with Conscience in an Imperfect World: An Invitation. The resulting constellation of images and words (1) realizes a space within which works of art, specifically photographs, operate as centers of meaning to generate educational implications, and (2) theorizes a pedagogy that resists unilateral prescriptions and is instead anchored around openness, expansion, and individualization. The paper begins with a few short pieces from Sarah Pfohl, including an overview of Ayers’ book and ideas from writings on progressive education, object-based teaching and learning, and close/slow looking to position works of art as sites of rich meaning. While contemporary schooling often drives toward monolithic, numerical representations of the learners in its care, the article employs postdigital gestures to argue that learners have more in common with works of art than numbers, and thus, attention to artworks can open valuable implications for teaching and learning. The diverse group of images that follow offer an emerging portrait of teaching practice as a set of constantly shifting constellations moving across deep time and space from the intensely specific to the wide. Four texts think more about schools, education, and art. Finally, there is a postscript from Bill Ayers himself.
This chapter offers a postcolonial feminist reading of the works of the British-Italian travel wr... more This chapter offers a postcolonial feminist reading of the works of the British-Italian travel writer and adventuress Freya Stark (1893–1993), who travelled extensively throughout the Middle East and North African region. Her impact on travel writing as an unmarried European woman traveler, at the beginning of the twentieth century, without income, local connections or colonial rank is notable. This chapter provides close reading, through a postcolonial feminist lens, of two first edition volumes of Stark’s autobiographical travel books written during 1928–1939. The analysis explores the commercial nexus of Orientalism, which is the term that refers to Western depictions of the ‘Eastern’ world (Said E, Orientalism. Pantheon, New York, 1998). It discusses Stark’s work in relation to conceived reader expectations, as well as her distinctly ambivalent attitude to British colonialism and colonials. I suggest that Stark’s ambiguous role, as insider-outsider both within and between the Ar...
Considering the seismic shift in current affairs since Covid-19, scholarship predating the global... more Considering the seismic shift in current affairs since Covid-19, scholarship predating the global pandemic could be in danger of seeming redundant. Yet Culture & Crisis in the Arab World, published in 2019, explores Arab crisis culture at global scale and as an aspect of globalisation that is pertinent to a world in flux. Ten case studies ambitiously examine artistic, literary and media practices, enmeshed within authoritarian state control, prominent across Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria through a ‘post-Bourdieusian’ lens (p. 4). This article is a review of this timely collection of essays.
Postdigital Science and Education volume 3, pages793–830 (2021), 2021
Within the space of this collective image/text article, 18 photographic imagemakers and 4 respond... more Within the space of this collective image/text article, 18 photographic imagemakers and 4 respondents consider deeply and dialogically a quote from William Ayers’ 2016 book Teaching with Conscience in an Imperfect World: An Invitation. The resulting constellation of images and words (1) realizes a space within which works of art, specifically photographs, operate as centers of meaning to generate educational implications, and (2) theorizes a pedagogy that resists unilateral prescriptions and is instead anchored around openness, expansion, and individualization. The paper begins with a few short pieces from Sarah Pfohl, including an overview of Ayers’ book and ideas from writings on progressive education, object-based teaching and learning, and close/slow looking to position works of art as sites of rich meaning. While contemporary schooling often drives toward monolithic, numerical representations of the learners in its care, the article employs postdigital gestures to argue that learners have more in common with works of art than numbers, and thus, attention to artworks can open valuable implications for teaching and learning. The diverse group of images that follow offer an emerging portrait of teaching practice as a set of constantly shifting constellations moving across deep time and space from the intensely specific to the wide. Four texts think more about schools, education, and art. Finally, there is a postscript from Bill Ayers himself
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This timely research-based study reveals how micro-celebrities and Dubai’s visible economies influence the evolution of the Emirate. Taking a cutting edge post-digital approach, underpinned by cultural studies and social media theory, Social Media Influencing in The City of Likes presents a series of unique case studies and demonstrates how Dubai is considered not only an illusion of unlimited indulgence but also a city dependent on the emerging infrastructure of visible economies, visual attractions, and ‘Instagrammable’ locations. Evaluating the cases of multiple influencers, from local to transnational content creators, Hurley reveals how residents, non-citizens and migrant workers surviving as influencers in the city of ‘likes.’
Providing a much-needed de-Westernising perspectives of Dubai’s social media influencing industry within the broader context of global platform capitalism, Social Media Influencing in The City of Likes offers an important contribution to the field of social media through illustrating visible economies in a city circuited by social media influencing.
This timely research-based study reveals how micro-celebrities and Dubai’s visible economies influence the evolution of the Emirate. Taking a cutting edge post-digital approach, underpinned by cultural studies and social media theory, Social Media Influencing in The City of Likes presents a series of unique case studies and demonstrates how Dubai is considered not only an illusion of unlimited indulgence but also a city dependent on the emerging infrastructure of visible economies, visual attractions, and ‘Instagrammable’ locations. Evaluating the cases of multiple influencers, from local to transnational content creators, Hurley reveals how residents, non-citizens and migrant workers surviving as influencers in the city of ‘likes.’
Providing a much-needed de-Westernising perspectives of Dubai’s social media influencing industry within the broader context of global platform capitalism, Social Media Influencing in The City of Likes offers an important contribution to the field of social media through illustrating visible economies in a city circuited by social media influencing.