Producing the Public in Arab Societies: Media Working Group

Helga Tawil-Souri: Dis/Formations of Palestine

Helga Tawil-Souri is an Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. Her academic work focuses on issues of spatiality, technology, and politics in the Middle East, with particular focus on Palestine-Israel. The bulk of her scholarship analyzes culture and technology in everyday life in Palestine-Israel, theorizing how media technologies and infrastructures function as bordering mechanisms, and how territorial/physical boundaries function as cultural spaces. Her publications have analyzed different aspects of contemporary cultural politics, including the internet, telecommunications, television, film, and videogames, as well as physical markers such as ID cards and checkpoints. Her work analyzes how each of these technologies is shaped, used, negotiated and sometimes resisted in their historical political specificities. She also researches and writes about the larger landscape of Arab media, and in particular new technologies and their relationship to political and economic transformations. 

Previous to joining academia, Helga worked as a researcher and strategic analyst at a multinational media conglomerate, and, later, as an internet consultant. Throughout that work, she was involved in conducting research for media markets globally, as well as design process on various technological and media platforms. Helga is also a photographer and documentary filmmaker. She focuses on Palestinian issues, such as diaspora, occupation, and space.