Saida is a Lecturer and Head of the Media Studies at Al-Quds Bard (AQB). She majored in English Literature at Arizona State University for her BA and later obtained a Master's Degree in International Studies at BirZeit University. She has nearly thirty years of experience as a distinguished journalist and Media and Communication Specialist in some of the most leading organizations, including the World Bank, AL Hayat Newspaper (London-based), TF1 (French TV), ABC News, and ITN. Throughout her years of experience, Saida has accumulated a wide range of knowledge in the world of media and a diverse set of communication and analytical skills, of which she passionately transferred to her students at AQB. Saida’s teaching experience at Palestinian universities, including AL Quds Open University and BirZeit University (BZU) enhanced her commitment to further pursue and build her career in the academic field, promote knowledge and critical thinking skills, challenge the traditional media teaching methods in Palestine, and create new programs that enable students to creatively express themselves as journalists and reach a wider audience.

shamad@staff.alquds.edu

Sara Mourad is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the American University of Beirut, where she co-directs the Women & Gender Studies Program. Her research and writing consider relations between desire, deviance, and dissidence as they manifest in Arab literature, media, and popular culture. Her research has appeared in the International Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and the Journal of Communication Inquiry and she has published essays and cultural commentary on feminism, sexual politics, and Lebanese public life in Jadaliyya, Al Jumhuriya, Rusted Radishes, and Megaphone. Sara received her Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2018, she was a Global Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality. In 2021/22, she was a EUME fellow at the Forum for Transregional Studies in Berlin.

sm96@aub.edu.lb

Hanan Toukan is Professor of Middle East Studies. Her teaching and writings sit at the intersection of international politics, Middle East politics, postcolonial studies, decolonial theory, critical race theory, visual cultures and cultural studies. Her research is concerned with the political and social roles art and cultural institutions play in our lives, art and migration and the politics of knowledge production. She is a recipient of several research awards including most recently from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for her current research project on the visual and cultural politics of museums and other art spaces in Europe and the Middle East. Her book The Politics of Art: Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy in Palestine Lebanon and Jordan (2021) is published with Stanford University Press. Toukan’s work has been published in Cultural Politics, Arab Studies Journal, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Radical Philosophy, Journal of Visual Culture, Journal for Palestine Studies, Review of Middle East Studies, Jerusalem Quarterly, SCTIW Review, Jadaliyya and Ibraaz amongst others. She has published chapters in Leila Farsakh (ed.) Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: Self-Determination and Decolonization Beyond Statehood (University of California Press, 2021), Viola Shafik (ed), Documentary Filmmaking in the Middle East and North Africa (Cairo University Press, 2021); Friederike Pannewick and Georges Khalil (eds.), Commitment and Beyond: Locating the Political in Arabic Literature since the 1940s (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2015); and Dina Matar and Zahera Harb (eds.), Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communication Practices in Lebanon and Palestine (IB Tauris, 2013).

h.toukan@berlin.bard.edu