Event Description
How did oil's demiurgic powers mold the social and cultural life of the Middle East in the twentieth century as the largest petroleum producing region in the world? This lecture focuses on some of the visible/invisible manifestation of petroleum in the Arab World in the 1950s and 1960s, and on oil's power to mediate the social and cultural life of the region. Taking a visual approach, this talk explores how the oil industry created new national and social imaginaries, and visual and artistic practice through the production and circulation of propaganda materials for local audiences that portrayed Arab workers, cars as marvelous ‘oil machines’, and petroleum infrastructure through images and stories that naturalized petroleum's new technical and corporate worlds.
Event Speaker
Nelida Fuccaro, Professor of Middle Eastern History at New York University
Event Information
Open to Columbia University ID holders. No registration required. For more information, please visit the event webpage.
Hosted by the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.
