The Temporal Middle East
Panel 1: Regional Formations and the Nation
This paper takes a historic overview of temporality, defined as the social & political experience of time, as an object of study in Western-based scholarship on the Arabic-speaking Middle East. It starts with discussing how postcolonial approaches to temporality have dominated Arab studies on collective memory as resistance, the role of the state in history writing, and the study of collective movements. I argue that an enduring source of tension within conceptualising temporality can be described as a temporal double consciousness that cannot recognize the self without invoking the West. A recent manifestation of this, I suggest, is expressed through scholarly anxiety around the politics of naming the region. I then move on to think about the place of media and communication studies in relation to the temporal. I conclude with identifying future directions and gaps in the literature in thinking of the temporal Middle East, particularly from the perspective of media and communication studies.
Dr. Omar Al-Ghazzi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. His research expertise is in the reporting and representation of conflict, digital journalism and the politics of time and memory— with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Dr Al-Ghazzi completed his PhD at the Annenberg School for Communication, the University of Pennsylvania. He holds MAs in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania and American University and a BA in Communication Arts from the Lebanese American University. His research has appeared in the field of communication’s top journals including Communication Theory, Journalism and the International Journal of Communication.
