Janet Abu-Lughod Library Seminar

3rd Janet Abu-Lughod Library Seminar: Discussion and Closing Celebration

Featuring Domesticity: Filmed and Televised Representations of the Transitioning Space of the Home

Introduction by seminar instructor Shaikha Almubaraki. Presentations by seminar participants Eliza Marks, Farah Hamdan, Firas Hamdan, Manar Darwish, Maureen Lax, Mohammad Abu Al-huda, Nadine Fattaleh, Nasreen Abd Elal, Nour Mujahed, Raghad Al-Ali, Rawan Baybars, Saad Armouti, Tala Abdulhadi.

Seminar Abstract by Shaikha Almubaraki

Films and television serials produced within the Arab world, particularly by Arab filmmakers, provide a window into visual domesticity and its negotiation of tradition and modernity. They also serve as an important medium for the analysis of the imagined interaction that takes place within the home, since the camera’s eye can pierce the interior world of the family in ways that may be guarded, in real life, by silent walls. The seminar takes as its premise visual culture not as a replica of actual life, but a reality of its own that serves as a commentary, reaction, or propaganda that at times influences actual reality.