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 open collaboration with prison writers and intellectuals, on the artistic, cultural, and political valences of creating prison narratives today. Examples of research questions include: what forms of community, or publics, are presumed and invited by contemporary Syrian prison narratives? And how do today’s practitioners seek to re-write, re-fashion, and perhaps break from the established genres, authors, and meanings of prison literature? 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
Research Associate
+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
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.
Bader Eddin, Eylaf, Translating the Language of the Syrian Revolution (2011/12), De Gruyter, forthcoming in 2023.
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
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)
Call for Expressions of Interest: SYRASP Working Group 2022-2023: Prison Narrative and the Archive
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): Testimonies of Imprisonment in Syrian Protest Archives
11 May 2023, 2-4 pm | Yasmin Kherfi (London School of Economics): Reconstructing the Revolutionary Legacy: Thinking Alongside Syrian Curatorial and Archival Practices in Exile
15 Jun 2023, 2-4 pm | Gizem Sivri (Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München): 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
tba | Lobna Ben Salem (Université de la Manouba): Prison Literature in Tunisia, the Resurrection of a Genre
Please register in advance via syrasp(at)trafo-berlin.de.