About:

Christa Salamandra is a Syrian media specialist and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Lehman College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She received a PhD from the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, where she also served as Postdoctoral Research Associate. She has been a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, a Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at Lebanese American University in Beirut, and a Visiting Fellow at the New Islamic Public Sphere Programme, University of Copenhagen. She is the author of A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria (Indiana University Press, 2014), and co-editor (with Leif Stenberg) of Syria from Reform to Revolt, Vol 2 (Syracuse University Press, 2015). A 2009 American Council of Learned Societies/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship supported her current book project on the Syrian TV drama industry in the satellite era. She serves on the Editorial Boards of the journals Arab Media and Society, Middle East Critique, and Cyberorient.