The Prison Narratives of Assad’s Syria: Voices, Texts, Publics (SYRASP)
The Prison Narratives of Assad’s Syria: Voices, Texts, Publics (SYRASP)
SYRASP explores the sociopolitical, legal, and cultural significance of the diverse networks and practices by which Syrians and their allies have produced, and continue to produce, prison narratives: works of literature, testimonies and oral histories, artworks, archives, protests, images, films, and digital and audiovisual works that represent incarceration, torture, and forced disappearance under the Assad regime, which ruled Syria 1970-2024. At their core, prison narratives respond to that regime’s carceral system – one of the most sustained and brutal assaults on human rights in modern history. The project documents and analyzes past and contemporary prison narratives as acts of resistance, solidarity, and memory that continue to shape Syrians’ struggle for truth, dignity, and justice.
Working with Syrian writers, intellectuals, activists, and artists in the European Union, SYRASP builds on the growing canon of Syrian prison literature and its evolving scholarly and civic importance. As an interdisciplinary and collaborative project, SYRASP employs methods from literary studies, cultural anthropology, ethics, and critical data studies. It bridges the worlds of academia and civil society to promote knowledge exchange and joint research with Syrian-led organizations in Europe. The project tracks the political, aesthetic, and affective lives of prison stories across diverse platforms and networks. Examples of works under study include names and memories smuggled out of detention centers; published memoirs; courtroom testimonies; narratives shared via YouTube, films, TED Talks, and podcasts; artistic and civic protests in Europe and Syria; and archival websites that preserve and analyze prison testimonies. By approaching such narratives as dynamic, living practices, SYRASP traces how Syrians use them to remember the political violence of the past, to reimagine identity and belonging inside and outside Syria, and to envision a more just and inclusive future.
This project is an investigation funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 851393), hosted by the Forum Transregionale Studien (Forum), and related to EUME.
Anne-Marie McManus
Principal Investigator
+49 (0)30 89001 424
anne.marie.mcmanus(at)trafo-berlin.de
More information
Nahed Samour
Ethics Advisor & DPO
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
nahed.samour(at)rewi.hu-berlin.de
More information
Christian Boulanger
Ethics Advisor & DPO
Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
boulanger(at)lhlt.mpg.de
More information
Publications
McManus, Anne-Marie, Khaled Barakeh, Brigitte Herremans, and Guevara Namer, Presenting Absence: A Conversation, Berlin, March 2022, in: Third Text (2025), pp. 1-17.
Bader Eddin, Eylaf, Sijniyya: New Prison Songs in Sednaya, in: Regards 32 (2025), pp. 105-174.
McManus, Anne-Marie, Towards Syrian-led Transitional Justice, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 19 December 2024.
Bader Eddin, Eylaf, السجنية السورية: موسيقا ما بعد السجن , in: عقد ٌ من الفنون: أوراق بحثية عن اإلنتاج الفني السوري, ed. حنان قصاب حسن, Damascus/Etterbeek, 2024, pp. 17-124.
CLCweb Special Issue “Comparative Approaches to Prison Literatures in the MENA and its Diasporas”, edited by Anne-Marie McManus and Brahim El Guabli, including these articles:
- McManus, Anne-Marie, New Approaches to MENA Prison Literatures After 2011, in: CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 25.1, June 2023.
- Baker, Jaber, Prison as a Living Being: ‘Assad’s Syria’ as a model for the Imprisonment State, in: CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 25.1, June 2023.
- McManus, Anne-Marie, The Networks of Prison Narrative: Imagining Sociality and Making Narrative in Asad’s Syria, in: CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 25.1, June 2023.
Bader Eddin, Eylaf, Translating the Language of the Syrian Revolution (2011/12), De Gruyter, 2023.
Barakeh, Khaled and Anne-Marie McManus, VOCAL. On the MUTE Installation, in: Wolfgang Kaleck and Patrick Kroker (ed.): Syrische Staatsfolter vor Gericht. Syrian State Torture on Trial, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2023, pp. 122- 135 (Arabic version on pp. 96-109, German version on pp. 134-179).
McManus, Anne-Marie, Al-nuzuh: Displacement as Keyword, in: Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 15:4, 8 November 2022, pp. 455-466.
Bader Eddin, Eylaf, Al-Abad: On the Ongoing, in: Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 15:4, 8 November 2022, pp. 367-376.
McManus, Anne-Marie, Trauma and the 1980s in Arabic Literary Studies, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 9 June 2022.
McManus, Anne-Marie, Readings in Syrian Prison Literature: The Poetics of Human Rights. R. Shareah Taleghani (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2021), in: International Journal of Middle East Studies,53:4, 2021, pp. 705-707. (Book Review)
McManus, Anne-Marie, On the Ruins of What’s to Come, I Stand: Time and Devastation in Syrian Cultural Production since 2011, in: Critical Inquiry, 48:1, Autumn 2021, pp. 45-67.
McManus, Anne-Marie,Death is Hard Work: Insolvent Violence and the Persistence of Literature, in: Read Respond, July 2021.
McManus, Anne-Marie, Becoming Assemblies in Contemporary Syria, in: Books and Ideas, 22 February 2021.
News
Interview with Anne-Marie McManus by Yezid Sayigh:
The Assads’ Houses of Death, Diwan, 13.01.2025.
Hannah El-Hitami on a SYRASP workshop:
Syrische Kultur in Deutschland: Töne der Menschlichkeit bewahren, taz.de, 08.08.2023.
Ex-Syrian Prisoners Reunite With Music as Their Balm, New Lines Magazine, 08.08.2023.
Repost on the TRAFO Blog on 24.08.2023
Episode of the Justice Visions Podcast on The Syrian Gulag: Reality and Narratives about the Prison System, hosted by Brigitte Herremans, guests: Artino, Jaber Baker, Uğur Ümit Üngör and SYRASP PI Anne-Marie McManus (30 June 2022).
Call for Expressions of Interest: SYRASP Working Group 2022-2023: Prison Narrative and the Archive
Call for Papers: Special Issue "Comparative Approaches to the Prison Literatures of the Middle East, North Africa, and Their Diasporas" of CLC Web (Comparative Literature and Culture), edited by Anne-Marie McManus (PI of SYRASP) and Brahim El Guabli (Williams College)

