Each year, the Stanford Arts Institute collaborates with Bing Overseas Studies Programs to offer a Global Arts Immersion. This year, the Global Arts Immersion will take place in Jordan in Summer 2024.
History, Urbanity & Performance in The Middle East
Held in Summer 2024, this course takes cultural artifacts as the foundational blocks of the Levant, asking a fundamental question about how a contemporary state exists on top and beside the ancient past, by exploring three cities: Petra, Jerash, and Amman. All three cities have large theatres that suggest a particular pattern of growth over time, and play a major role in how these cities function today as tourist attractions and a geography for performances of everyday life. In these three case studies, students will investigate how culture, in its broadest definition, has shaped the destiny of the Levant historically and in the present day. We will ask: How did three major metropolitan cities that stretch back to antiquity develop into very different urban living spaces today? Why do all of them have a massive theatrical space in their midst? For the 2024 program, we've added reading inscriptions as a tool for examining our relationship with the city, past and present.
Meet the Instructor: Samer Al-Saber.
Samer is Assistant Professor of Theatre And Performance Studies, and a member of the faculty at the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE) and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. Before coming to Stanford, he has taught at various institutions (Davidson College, Florida State University) on a wide range of topics, including Conflict and Theatre, Arab Theatre and Culture, Palestinian Theatre, Performing Arabs, Staging Islam and American Politics, and Orientalism. At Stanford, he teaches courses concerned with identity, race, and ethnicity at the intersection of Islam and the Arts His international research is focused on the cultural dimensions of the Arab World, the Middle East, and Islamicate regions. As artist/scholar, his field work intersects with theatre practice as a director and writer.
Applications open soon!
The 2024 Global Arts Immersion in Jordan is run in collaboration with Bing Overseas Studies Programs. Please visit the BOSP Global Seminars website for program details, including eligibility requirements and application procedures.
Contact:
Stanford Arts Institute
artsinstitute@stanford.edu
