Sexing the Other: Themes in Postwar Lebanese Cinema

What role does sexuality play in postwar cinematic renditions of Lebanese identity and citizenship? And how and why does gender figure as a salient axis of representation? Through a critical reading of three popular Lebanese films, West Beirut (1998), Bosta (2005), and Caramel (2007), Mourad will unpack how difference is visually and figuratively rendered through themes of secrecy and revelation, passing and coming out. Such discourses, which emerge through the filmic plots, characters, and spaces, point to the ways in which sex becomes a lens to imagine and represent an “other” in a fragmented postwar landscape. All that will be discussed with Sara Mourad.

Sara Mourad is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining Annenberg, Sara received her B.A in Political Science from the American University of Beirut. Her current research grapples with queer theory, cultural studies, and postcolonial theory to explore the nexus of citizenship and intimacy in popular and public culture. Sara serves as the Graduate Associate for the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in the International Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, the Journal of Communication Inquiry, the Global Media Journal, and Jadaliyya.