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Events

Intellectual collaborations thrive in environments where ideas are shared, freely and respectfully, among people representing different backgrounds and perspectives. Many of society’s most urgent challenges can only be addressed by enlisting the public as partners. This is why the Neubauer Collegium regularly opens its inquiries and conversations to the public.

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"Orientalism" Is Not a Theoretical Machine

Lecture

"Orientalism" Is Not a Theoretical Machine

This lecture by Fadi A. Bardawil will consider Edward Said’s "reckoning with difference."

Lecture by Fadi A. Bardawil on Edward Said’s "reckoning with difference"

This event is presented by Revolutionary Disappointment and Recalibration, a 2026–2027 Neubauer Collegium research project organized in partnership with the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT).


ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Fadi A. Bardawil’s work investigates the traditions of critical intellectual inquiry and modalities of political engagement of contemporary Arab thinkers at home and in the diaspora. At its heart, his work is animated by the necessity to rethink the multiple genealogies of critical theory to reckon with questions of power, emancipation, and difference in an increasingly interconnected yet fragmented world. Bardawil is the author of Revolution and Disenchantment: Arab Marxism and the Binds of Emancipation (Duke UP, 2020). Some of his Arabic and English writings have appeared in Megaphone; American Ethnologist, boundary2; CSAAME; The Journal for Palestine Studies (Arabic edition); al-Jumhuriyya; The Immanent Frame; POLAR Online; South Atlantic Quarterly; Ma3azef, Allegra Lab, Notices of the American Mathematical Society, and World Records Journal. He has recently taught at the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University, the Arab Council for Social Sciences, Princeton University, and the University of Tokyo. He is an Associate Professor of Contemporary Arab Cultures in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University.

Neubauer Collegium

This lecture by Fadi A. Bardawil will consider Edward Said’s "reckoning with difference."

Register

Highways of Collective Action

People linking arms on the side of the road during Lebanon's October 17 protests.
Lecture

Highways of Collective Action

This lecture by Hiba Bou Akar will examine the improvised protest spaces that shaped Lebanon’s October 17 uprising.

This talk examines Lebanon’s October 17 uprising through two charged infrastructures: Beirut’s Ring Road and the Khalde Triangle. Drawing on participant observation, interviews, and archival research, Hiba Bou Akar shows how protesters transformed roads, overpasses, and roundabouts into spaces of gathering, debate, care, mourning, and political refusal. The talk asks what these improvised protest spaces reveal about public life in cities shaped by sectarian fragmentation, privatized space, and unequal infrastructures.

This event is presented by Revolutionary Disappointment and Recalibration, a 2026–2027 Neubauer Collegium research project organized in partnership with the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT).


ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Hiba Bou Akar is an Associate Professor in the Urban Planning program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, and leads Columbia’s Post-Conflict Cities Lab. Her research focuses on planning in conflict and post-conflict cities, the question of urban violence, and the role of religious political organizations in the making of cities. Bou Akar is the author of the award-winning book For the War Yet to Come: Planning Beirut’s Frontiers (2018), and she is currently working on a book manuscript entitled The Afterlives of Dead Futures. Bou Akar also worked as an architect and planner and as a research consultant with local NGOs and international UN organizations in the Middle East.

Neubauer Collegium

This lecture by Hiba Bou Akar will examine the improvised protest spaces that shaped Lebanon’s October 17 uprising.

Register