Spring 2024
In my introduction to the last newsletter, I expressed my vision for a research and creative culture of free inquiry and wide-ranging curiosity that elevates the quality and reputation of everything we do at Northwestern Qatar. Since I have been the leader of this unique institution, I have made it a strategic priority to nurture an institutional culture of knowledge-making and creativity supported by professional mentoring and financial resources to bring to fruition our vision of a community of evidence-based storytellers making distinctive contributions to knowledge. I could not be happier to see the humbling cornucopia of scholarly and creative accomplishments listed below; it reminds me of the Socratic paradox—ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat, or “I know that I know nothing”—which teaches us humility, for no matter how important our contributions, they are but a small addition to the vastness of human knowledge. In service of our continuous pursuit of excellence and humility, I commit to doubling down on supporting everyone in our community in their quest and responsibility to advance knowledge.
Our second installment of the newsletter captures an unmistakable scholarly momentum at NU-Q, with nine new books, several prestigious fellowships, awards, and residencies, a plethora of journal articles and book chapters, and numerous creative scholarship showpieces, journalist stories, and conference presentations. We, once again, appreciate the faculty for their voluntary submissions to this publication, and I thank the Research Office for working with me to verify and format citations, as well as the Communications and Public Affairs department for assisting in the publication. Subsequent NU-Q Research and Creative Scholarship newsletters will be published on an annual basis.
Zachary Wright
Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs
The past year has been a busy one at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South (#IAS_NUQ). In August 2023, the institute welcomed three new postdoctoral scholars: Chafic Najem, Mariam Karim, and Harsha Man Maharjan. At #IAS_NUQ, their work has focused on topics of key relevance to the Global South, including prison media in Lebanon (Najem), Arab feminist writing in the twentieth century (Karim), and the politics of digital identification in Nepal (Maharjan).
We also consolidated our visiting scholar program into an #IAS_NUQ Global Fellowship, welcoming Tanja Bosch (University of Cape Town) and Diatyka Widya Permata Yasih (Universitas Indonesia) after a competitive global search. To support our rapid growth, Krishna Sharma joined our team as administrative assistant and Zeest Marrium as the inaugural alumni fellow.
#IAS_NUQ has hosted a robust series of public events. In January 2024, we launched a new signature event series, the NU-Q Lecture on the Global South, with Herman Wasserman, professor of journalism and chair of the Department of Journalism at Stellenbosch University, presenting the inaugural lecture, “Disinformation in the Global South: Critique, Contexts, Cases.” While in Doha, Wasserman also held a workshop for NU-Q faculty and #IAS_NUQ fellows on academic publishing and had a mentoring lunch with our undergraduate fellows. In November 2023, as part of our AIMS project, we held a conference on “The Global South in an Era of Great Power Competition” in collaboration with the Security in Context (SIC) network. We co-hosted two public talks with the Center for Regional and International Studies (CIRS) at Georgetown University in Qatar in collaboration with the Critical Security Studies Qatar Hub, supported by the Arab Council for Social Sciences (ACSS). Additionally, since April 2023, we have held two Virtual Book Talks, five Virtual AIMS Seminars, and two research colloquia, with several more planned for the remainder of spring 2024.
We continue to support NU-Q faculty scholarship via our faculty grants. Through the #IAS_NUQ Conference and Workshop Grant, we supported Torsten Mengue and Haya Al Noaimi on an international workshop, “Territories, Peoples, Nations: Decolonial Approaches to Foundational Concepts,” held in January 2024 at NU-Q (in collaboration with New York University in Abu Dhabi and the Arab Council for Social Sciences). Through our #IAS_NUQ Global South Research Grant, we are supporting a new educational video game on disinformation in the Philippines, led by Professor Spencer Striker, in partnership with De La Salle University in Manila.
The #IAS_NUQ Global Undergraduate Fellow program also continues to flourish. On January 31, 2024, the 2023 #IAS_NUQ Global Undergraduate Fellows presented their final projects at a large community event. This included four research papers, five multimodal digital projects, and six documentary films, all contributing to evidence-based storytelling on the Global South. Three recent #IAS_NUQ Global Undergraduate Fellows have had their projects accepted at international conferences. Abenezer Bekele and In’utu Imbuwa will present their research papers on AI adoption in Qatar and political messaging in Zambia, respectively, at the International Communication Association conference in Australia in June. Arham Khalid will present her documentary film on the recent hijab ban in India at the Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia at the University of Buffalo, USA. In January 2024, we also welcomed our third cohort of undergraduate fellows, who will work on a range of topics, including gendered digital financial inclusion in Bangladesh, the history of the Armenian community in Kolkata, class and gender in digital Brazil, education policy in Rwanda, and TikTok use among beauty salon workers in urban Pakistan, and others.
Our Carnegie Corporation-supported Arab Media and Information Studies (AIMS) program hosted the first (AIMS) Theory and Method Institute in Lebanon in August, aimed at graduate students and other early career scholars and focused on Arab Digitalities. Our second AIMS Theory and Method Institute is taking place in February 2024 in Doha, with a focus on Writing for the Public and Policy.
In February 2024, we also launched #IAS_NUQ Press’ first publication, a bilingual and multimodal roundtable exploring the multiple meanings of security by members of the Critical Security Studies Qatar Hub. Critical Security Studies from Doha – A Roundtable reflects the group’s critical engagement with security and its connections to disciplines such as migration, gender, youth studies, decolonial philosophy, and international law.
NU-Q has launched a new strategic research initiative, the Artificial Intelligence and Media Lab (AIM Lab), led by S. Venus Jin, professor of communication and associate dean for education. To learn more about the priorities and research agenda as articulated by Dean Kraidy and Associate Dean Jin during an inauguration event on February 5, 2024, please reference the linked news story.
