Reimagining Saudi Petro-Modernity: History and Space in a Post-Rentier State
Institute For Middle East Studies
Join IMES for a discussion regarding Saudi Arabia and its connection with oil in modern times.
Speaker
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Rosie Bsheer is an Assistant Professor of History at Yale University specializing in the Arabian peninsula, especially social and intellectual history and historiography. In this talk she will probe Saudi Arabia’s shifting technologies of political legitimation and capital accumulation following the 1990 Gulf War, rooted as they were in the attendant multi-billion dollar archival and urban redevelopment projects. Post–1990 Gulf War political, social, and economic turmoil was central not only to the changing relationship between religious and secular powers, but also to the very mechanisms of producing consent, reordering social relations, and generating wealth. Historicizing these phenomena, the talk opens up new questions about religious subjectivity, state sovereignty, and social and economic relations. Dr. Bsheer was the associate producer for the 2007 Oscar-nominated film My Country, My Country. She is also a co-editor for Jadaliyya and the volumes The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of an Old Order? and Theorizing the Arabian Peninsula.