Track 02
Terrorism machines:
Art production, Sociopolitical implications.

Track chairs Afif Arabi (International University of Beirut), Zena Meskaoui (Lebanese American University)

The terrorist groups that sprout just after the burst of the revolt of the population in several Arab countries drifted the revolutionary act away from its goals into radical ideologies with specified agendas controlled and manipulated by different international parties that took advantage of the chaos.

What are the mechanisms of the terrorist groups? How they function politically and socially? How did they use new media technologies in creating an image of manipulation? What kind of arts did they produce and how was it manifested? What kind of art also erupted as an anti-terror movement against war and violence in general? How art was a fighter for human rights and political freedom?

Papers under this topic would explore the histories, methodologies and art practices of the group and state-sponsored terror, or of the independent artist on the opposite side. Art production within the frame of its sociopolitical and cultural implications, art hi/stories that includes storytelling,  historiography, periodization, social history in the Arab context beside the usual issues of selection, exclusion, and meta-narratives.