The Prison Narratives of Assad’s Syria: Voices, Texts, Publics (SYRASP)
The Prison Narratives of Assad’s Syria: Voices, Texts, Publics (SYRASP)
Bridging the disciplines of literary studies and cultural anthropology, SYRASP researches contemporary narratives, images, social media practices, and cultural practices related to incarceration and forced disappearance in Syria under the Assad regime (1970-present).
SYRASP builds on the extensive literary canon of Syrian prison narratives and their associated scholarship to reflect, in evolving collaborations with Syrian cultural producers, artists, and researchers, on the cultural, political, and ethical valences of creating, documenting, and archiving prison narratives today. With over 130,000 disappeared since the beginning of the revolution in 2011, Syrian cultural producers in exile engage prison and forced disappearance to make demands for accountability and against normalization with the Assad regime; to invoke memories of individual and collective survival under duress; and to form new communities in the present. Together, these practices gesture to more just futures for Syrians. They also form innovative new bonds of solidarity across national identities, connecting Syrian memories and contemporary politics into the diverse cultural spaces across the globe where Syrians live and act.
SYRASP’s core methods incorporate dialogue with stakeholders in the Syrian cultural field and reflexivity on the position of academic research produced on Syrian literature and culture in English. Key publications from the grant will therefore include traditional academic genres (e.g., single-author articles and monographs) as well as interviews, dialogues, and reflections on the ethics of literary studies.
This project is a five-year 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.
Funded by:
SYRASP Team
Anne-Marie McManus
Principal Investigator
+49 (0)30 89001 424
anne.marie.mcmanus(at)trafo-berlin.de
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Eylaf Bader Eddin
Postdoctoral Researcher
+49 (0)30 89001 431
eylaf.bader.eddin(at)trafo-berlin.de
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Clara Abai
Student Assistant
+49 (0)30 89001 431
clara.abai(at)trafo-berlin.de
Wendy Pearlman
Ethics Advisor
Northwestern University
pearlman(at)northwestern.edu
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Nahed Samour
Ethics Advisor & DPO
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
nahed.samour(at)rewi.hu-berlin.de
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Christian Boulanger
Ethics Advisor & DPO
Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
boulanger(at)lhlt.mpg.de
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Publications
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.
Bader Eddin, Eylaf, Translating the Language of the Syrian Revolution (2011/12), De Gruyter, forthcoming in 2023.
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
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)
SYRASP Working Group 2022-2023 – Prison Narrative and the Archive
20 Oct 2022, 2-4 pm | Introductory Session
24 Nov 2022, 2-4 pm | Samad Alavi (University of Oslo): Lyric Testimony, Fictive Memory: Remembering and Forgetting the 1988 Prison Massacre in Iran
08 Dec 2022, 2-4 pm | Carceral Humanitarianism: A Discussion of the Film Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time, moderated by Basit Iqbal (McMaster University)
16 Mar 2023, 2-4 pm | Nour Al-Halabi (American University of Beirut): Archives of the Disappeared, Made Visible Again
27 Apr 2023, 2-4 pm | Adélie Chevée (European University Institute, Geneva): Narratives of Imprisonment in Syrian Protest Archives
11 May 2023, 2-4 pm | Yasmin Kherfi (London School of Economics): Collective Memory at the Margins: The Struggle Against Forced Disappearance in Transnational Perspective
15 Jun 2023, 2-4 pm | Gizem Sivri (Freie Universität Berlin / Stanford University): Tracing Ottoman Prison Reform (1840-1918): Failed or Achieved?
13 July 2023, 2-4 pm | Gasser Abdel-Razeq & Rim Naguib (Forum Transregionale Studien / EUME Fellow): Sign al-Nisa: A Conversation About Experiences of Women in Egypt's Prisons, Past and Present
14 Sep 2023, 2-4 pm| Charlotte Al-Khalili (University of Sussex): Ethnographic Explorations of the Syrian Revolution and its Carceral System: Methodological Challenges and Theoretical Propositions
Description of the Working Group
Please register in advance via syrasp(at)trafo-berlin.de.