In 2011, Darat al Funun launched a Fellowship program, providing an opportunity for doctoral candidates to reside at Darat al Funun, develop their dissertation research and benefit from our resources and archives.

For our 30th anniversary, a public colloquium about knowledge production will bring Darat al Funun fellows together in Amman for the first time to examine the ways in which knowledge about modern and contemporary Arab art is generated and disseminated. They represent a new generation of scholars who are expanding knowledge about Arab art, challenging previous paradigms, and calling for a reassessment of conventional narratives about the region and its diverse cultures.

From the vantage point of their individual research experiences and methodologies, the Fellows will elucidate how their work addresses lacunae in existing scholarship, and highlight the myriad opportunities as well as some of the challenges that stand in the way of documenting and understanding Arab art. The colloquium aims to speculate about the global status of Arab art today, asking how it is produced, perceived, supported, documented, and theorized.

Participating Fellows are: Amin Alsaden, Edward McDonald-Toone, Elizabeth Rauh, Fares Chalabi, Holiday Powers, Nisa Ari, and Reema Salha Fadda.

Moderated by Dr. Silvia Naef and Dr. Adila Laïdi-Hanieh and coordinated by Fellow Amin Alsaden.

The colloquium will be in English; simultaneous translation into Arabic will be provided.