<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252">
<style type="text/css" style="display:none;"> P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;} </style>
</head>
<body dir="ltr">
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<div style="margin: 0px 0in 0.000133333px; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">
<p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white">
<span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">Hi empyre – thanks for reading, and to Dale for the invitation to engage with these important questions.</span></p>
<p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; background:white">
<u1:p><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"> </span></u1:p></p>
<p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; background:white">
<span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">Many of the artists I work with are based in the UAE, which restricts expression – particularly criticism of the state, royal families, and Islam. Artists have used the [ostensibly] deterritorialized
site of the internet to skirt some of these restrictions – engaging in limited-circuit digital performances, online exhibitions, or withholding information about the target of the work’s critique or exhibition’s location in order to protect the artist from
potential retribution. The resulting work is simultaneously of the UAE, and yet not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Paradoxically then, the internet as deterritorialized platform reveals the very contours of the political in a particular place.
</span></p>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
-Beth </div>
<div id="Signature">
<div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" dir="ltr" style="font-size:12pt; color:#000000; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif">
<p style="margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"></p>
<div class="gs" style="margin:0px; padding:0px 0px 20px; width:764px">
<div class="" style="">
<div id=":146" class="ii gt" style="direction:ltr; margin:8px 0px 0px; padding:0px">
<div id=":14c" class="a3s aXjCH " style="overflow:hidden; font-variant-numeric:normal; font-variant-east-asian:normal; font-stretch:normal; line-height:1.5">
<div style=""><span id="m_5388552255638429383OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION" style="">
<div style="">
<div style="">
<div style="">
<div id="m_5388552255638429383" style="">
<div style="">
<div style=""><font color="#00007f" face="Verdana" size="2"><span style="font-family:Garamond,Georgia,serif; font-size:12pt; background-color:rgb(255,255,255); color:rgb(0,111,201)"></span></font></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p style="margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px"></p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="appendonsend"></div>
<hr style="display:inline-block;width:98%" tabindex="-1">
<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au <empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au> on behalf of Dale Hudson <dmh2018@nyu.edu><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, February 2, 2020 2:22 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au <empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [-empyre-] Welcome to week 1 of February 2020 discussion: Circumventing Territorial Limitations</font>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="BodyFragment"><font size="2"><span style="font-size:11pt;">
<div class="PlainText">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br>
I am thrilled that Elizabeth (Beth) Derderian and Sean Foley have agreed to help me launch month's discussion on Why Are We Still Talking about the Middle East?<br>
<br>
They both have done extensive research into ways that artists work around territorial limitations whilst still remaining grounded in particular cultural contexts of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and elsewhere. I’ve included their bios below the theme.<br>
<br>
I’ve learned so much from their work, so I am excited to learn more from them and for others through comments on their posts or sharing their own research or practice.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
WEEK’S TOPIC: Circumventing Territorial Limitations<br>
<br>
While some states in North Africa, West Asia, and South Asia are savvy in shutting down the internet to subdue protests, notably Egypt and India, others have been unable to keep pace with how citizens and non-citizens mobilize digital spaces make statements
that are riskier to make in physical space. <br>
<br>
While official state censorship garners headlines, unofficial forms self-censorship often pass unnoticed to the outside world. Various other pressures come into play such a social stigma and family status.<br>
<br>
Social media platforms that operate online and on mobiles provide a structure for networking across territorial boundaries. Despite the built-in risk of surveillance by transnational corporations, people often use Facebook or WhatsApp to communicate across
distances and divisions.<br>
<br>
This week focuses on how to artists circumnavigate censorship, often based on laws or rules concerning broadcast and on-site performance or exhibition, by mobilizing virtual space, considering which artists feel empowered to speak directly and which artists
prefer to speak indirectly or not at all.<br>
<br>
<br>
GUEST BIOS<br>
<br>
Beth Derderian is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Council on Middle East Studies at Yale University. She has a PhD in anthropology from Northwestern University, and a Master’s in Museum and Near Eastern Studies from NYU. Her research focuses on the politics
of art and cultural production in the Gulf. She was awarded a Fulbright IIE and a doctoral research grant from the Al Qasimi Foundation to conduct her field research. She also makes podcasts for AnthroPod, and co-edits the Middle East Section News on Anthropology
News.<br>
<br>
Sean Foley is a Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University, who has published extensively on Middle East and Islamic history. He is the author of Changing Saudi Arabia: Art, Culture, and Society in the Kingdom (2019) and The Arab Gulf States:
Beyond Oil and Islam (2010)—both of which were published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. He has also done extensive research in Saudi Arabia and has held Fulbright grants in Syria, Turkey, and Malaysia. For more on his work, see his website,
<a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=www.seanfoley.org&amp;data=02%7C01%7Celizabeth.derderian%40yale.edu%7C3d7e7816370f40fecf6608d7a7b0c225%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637162249926510932&amp;sdata=h5GfSJqUn3dRib%2BLTMGPnajEXUt%2FISUDP5Yq7lmHCmA%3D&amp;reserved=0">
https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=www.seanfoley.org&amp;data=02%7C01%7Celizabeth.derderian%40yale.edu%7C3d7e7816370f40fecf6608d7a7b0c225%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637162249926510932&amp;sdata=h5GfSJqUn3dRib%2BLTMGPnajEXUt%2FISUDP5Yq7lmHCmA%3D&amp;reserved=0</a>.
Follow him on twitter @foleyse.<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au<br>
<a href="https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fempyre.library.cornell.edu&amp;data=02%7C01%7Celizabeth.derderian%40yale.edu%7C3d7e7816370f40fecf6608d7a7b0c225%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637162249926520925&amp;sdata=iqTq5yuHPSvnoW6p0RPmDCo9GE9rUu%2BKdqUPpc3i4Ew%3D&amp;reserved=0">https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fempyre.library.cornell.edu&amp;data=02%7C01%7Celizabeth.derderian%40yale.edu%7C3d7e7816370f40fecf6608d7a7b0c225%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637162249926520925&amp;sdata=iqTq5yuHPSvnoW6p0RPmDCo9GE9rUu%2BKdqUPpc3i4Ew%3D&amp;reserved=0</a></div>
</span></font></div>
</body>
</html>