Séance 5 – Fantasmic Objects: Art and Sociality from Lebanon, 1920-1950 – Kirsten Scheid

3 février 2023 [séance en hybride]

Fantasmic Objects: Art and Sociality from Lebanon, 1920-1950

Kirsten Scheid, Department of  Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies at the American University of Beirut, Liban

Fantasmic Objects: An Ontology for Art and Sociality from Modern Lebanon, 1920-1950, offers both an historical ethnography of a modern, non-metropolitan art world, and an art historically focused account of the civic imagination and visual generation emergent from Islamic philosophies and the particular problem of becoming Arab in the aftermath of the Ottoman caliphate’s abolition. It focuses on three modern Lebanese artists and their place in a contemporary art world in Beirut: Moustapha Farrouk, Omar Onsi and Saloua Raouda Choucair who are major figures in the history of modern Lebanese art and by extension, global modern art. Through its chosen examples, this book seeks: (1) to identify an Islamic ontology of modern art through the notion of fantasm, a practice of art-making in postcolonial societies that cannot point back towards their natural “representation” but must produce images of beings to become; (2) to illuminate the “exhibitionary sociality” of contemporary art worlds as a mode of understanding modern art and modernity; and (3) to propose “an alternate anthropology” of the Middle East by focusing on art, artists, and aesthetics, and thereby, an anthropological movement drawing on dreams, aspiration, and imagination to speak not simply of where people are but where they might go and why.

Lien vers le livre sur le site de l’éditeur

Faculty in both the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies and the Department of Fine Arts and Arts History at the American University of Beirut, Kirsten Scheid writes, teaches, and researches the role of art at cross-cultural junctures, including its transnational histories and role in social transition. She investigates the role modern and contemporary art practices had in establishing, if not also defining, nations, subjects, and their publics in the 20th- and 21st-century Middle East—particularly Lebanon and Palestine, where she has conducted field and archival research since 1992 in Lebanon and Palestine. Her research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Palestinian American Research Center, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, among others. Scheid was awarded an EHESS chaire sécable in 2019 and the Clark/Oakley Humanities Fellow 2019-2020. She has taught at Northwestern University and the City University of New York/the Graduate Center. In addition to her new book, her most recent publications include “Whither the Spiritual: Rethinking Secularism’s Legacy in Post-Ottoman Art,” a guest-edited dossier with Hannah Feldman for Regards: la revue des art du spectacle, “Art as Material Form and Agent: Becoming ‘Middle Eastern Women’ through Art,” in The Handbook of Middle Eastern Women, edited by suad Joseph and Zeina Zaatari (Routledge, 2022), and “Palestinian Art Talk: A Local Lexicon for Global Art Production,” in In Motion: The Global Politics of Artistic Engagement, edited by Pénélope Larzillière (Brill, 2022). She has also co-curated “Historical Modernisms in the Arab World” (ArteEast, 2008-2009), “The Arab Nude: The Artist as Awakener” (Beirut, 2016), “Jerusalem Actual and Possible, 9th edition of the Jerusalem Show” (Jerusalem, 2018), and is preparing “Partisans of the Nude: An Arab Art Genre in an Era of Contest, 1920-1960” (Columbia University, New York, 2023-2024).

Infos pratiques (English text below)

Pour permettre au plus grand nombre de suivre le séminaire, celui-ci se déroulera cette année en mode hybride.

  • Périodicité : 1er et 3e vendredi du mois, du 18 novembre 2022 au 16 juin 2023
  • Horaires : 15:00-17:00
  • Lieu : Salle B03_18, 54 bd Raspail 75006 Paris
  • Visioconférence : Zoom

Attention : Vous ne pourrez pas accéder à ce séminaire sans avoir préalablement déposé une demande via le lien suivant : https://participations.ehess.fr/demandes/__nouvelle__?seminaire=679.

Merci de déposer la demande au plus tard 72 heures avant la première séance. Une seule demande suffit pour l’année et elle peut être effectuée à n’importe quel moment de l’année.

Avant chaque séance, nous enverrons un message de confirmation pour ceux qui seront en présentiel et le lien vers la salle de visioconférence pour ceux qui seront en distanciel.

Pour toute information, contactez-nous à l’adresse suivante : arvimm.groupe(at)gmail.com

Practical info

The seminar will be held in hybrid mode to allow as many people as possible to attend.

Frequency: 1st and 3rd Friday of the month, from November 18, 2022 to June 16, 2023
Schedule: 3 to 5pm
Location: Room B03_18, 54 bd Raspail 75006 Paris (capacity: 12 seats)
Videoconference: Zoom

Please note: You will not be able to attend this seminar without first submitting a request via the following link: https://participations.ehess.fr/demandes/__nouvelle__?seminaire=679.

Please submit the application no later than 72 hours before the first session. The application is valid for the whole year and it can be made at any time.

Before each session, we will send a confirmation message to those who will be onsite, and the link to the videoconference room for those who will be online.

For more information, please contact us at the following address: arvimm.groupe(at)gmail.com