Theatre and Kuwait

Recently, I’ve done some work on Kuwaiti television series and how disability features in these musalsals. I’m shifting my focus on theatre and Kuwaiti playwrights’ treatment of women and disability.

Here’s just a link to a working paper:

https://www.cambridge.org/engage/coe/article-details/607a7ea0b1d52591acf1b92b

On Arab fiction and trauma

I had fun moderating a talk with Kuwaiti author Layla Alammar. Moderating is never an easy task for me. It requires focus, attention, and a balance between giving the author a chance to talk as much as they want, and making sure the questions are not plain boring. Another problem I face is that my voice fades easily — vocal chord issues with MS and chronic fatigue. I make sure I get as much rest as I can, and yet, it is still so hard. Most of these talks are scheduled at night, when I’m fully out of it. But with Covid, most of these talks are now online — so accessible to me and others. I feel that it’s just easier, being able to sit in a chair and not have to sit up straight and then get up and walk around and pretend to be fully abled-bodied. But that’s a whole other post on its own.

Here’s the link to the talk, hosted by Columbia Global Centers (Amman). What a lovely group of people – they were accommodating and so helpful. Technology tends to fail us, but they did such a good job — and a group of inspiring and young women, too! Behind the scenes, lots of work was done to make sure this ends up as wonderful as it was.