Events

Abstract:

This guest lecture (and book signing) will be based on Dr. Sinno’s recent monograph, A War of Colors: Graffiti and Street Art in Postwar Beirut (University of Texas Press, 2024). Arguing that graffiti making is a dialogical, affective and embodied process, Dr. Sinno will provide a contextual analysis of Beirut’s postwar graffiti and street art. She demonstrates how graffiti-makers—armed with brushes, spray cans and a determination to intervene—have engaged in a fierce “war of colors” that disrupts the hegemony of wartime sectarian symbols and transforms the city’s physical and social space. The talk will highlight graffiti’s various roles, including reclaiming the cityscape, forging civic engagement, commemorating cultural icons, voicing feminist and LGBTQ+ concerns, protesting environmental violence, and animating resistance. The longitudinal study relies on fieldwork that Dr. Sinno conducted in Lebanon for over a decade, photographing graffiti on Beirut’s walls, in addition to interviewing graffiti-makers.

Bio:

Nadine Sinno is an Associate Professor of Arabic and director of the Arabic program at Virginia Tech. Her research interests include modern Arabic and Arab American literature and cultural studies, with a focus on visual culture, gender, violence, and the environment. She is also a literary translator. Her recent work includes a monograph titled, A War of Colors: Graffiti and Street Art in Postwar Beirut (University of Texas Press, 2024), and an edited volume with Mohja Kahf, titled Constructions of Masculinity in the Middle East and North Africa: Literature, Film, and National Discourse (University of Cairo Press, 2021). Her articles have appeared in numerous journals including The Journal of Arabic Literature, The Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, Middle East Critique, and Middle Eastern Literatures. Her other publications include translations of Jabbour Douaihy’s novel Firefly (Seagull, 2022) and Rashid Al-Daif’s novel Who’s Afraid of Meryl Streep? (University of Texas Press, 2014) with Paula Haydar, a co-translation of Huda Hamed’s novel I Saw Her in my Dreams with William Taggart (University of Texas Press, 2022), and a translation of Nazik Saba Yared’s Canceled Memories (Syracuse University Press, 2009). She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies and an M.F.A. in Literary Translation from the University of Arkansas, in addition to an M.A. and B.A. in English Literature from the American University of Beirut.