Book launch: 'Decolonizing Afghanistan: Countering Imperial Knowledge and Power'
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
- Venue
- Main Building, SOAS
- Room
- R101
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
The SOAS Middle East Institute (SMEI) and the SOAS South Asia Institute (SSAI) are pleased to host a book launch for Decolonizing Afghanistan: Countering Imperial Knowledge and Power published by Duke University Press, and edited by Wazhmah Osman and Robert D. Crews.
This book features cross-disciplinary, ground-up perspectives on colonial projects in Afghanistan, focusing on the US intervention that began in 2001 and its historical underpinnings and legacies. This event will feature contributors Dawood Azami (BBC World Service), Marya Hannun (University of Exeter) and Wazhmah Osman (Temple University).
They will discuss topics including media narratives, information warfare, and knowledge production and explore how visual tropes, textual narratives, mythologies, and ideologies shape how Afghanistan is portrayed locally and abroad. Participants will reflect on imperial histories, the ongoing impact of colonialism, and the possibility of decolonial futures.
Registration
This event is free to attend, but registration is required. Seating is allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note that food and drink is not permitted in R101.
Image credit: Sohaib Ghyasi on Unsplash
About the speakers
Wazhmah Osman is an Associate Professor at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication. Her research and teaching draw on feminist media ethnography to examine the political economy of global media industries and their representational regimes. She is the author of Television and the Afghan Culture Wars: Brought to You by Foreigners, Warlords, and Activists (2020), which won the International Communication Association’s 2021 Activism, Communication, and Social Justice Outstanding Book Award. She has published in leading journals, including the coauthored article, 'Decolonizing Transnational Feminism' (2024) in the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies. She has commented on media and politics for Democracy Now!, NPR, and Al Jazeera.
Marya Hannun is a historian of modern Afghanistan, with a focus on women, gender and Islamic reform. Her research is animated by a commitment to writing Afghanistan firmly into feminist histories of the Middle East and destabilising the boundaries that silo Area Studies. She holds a postdoctoral position at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, where she also serves as the Managing Editor of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP). Her current book project, Mobilizing Women, is on Afghanistan's first women's movement and gendered reforms in the early 20th century in the context of wider transregional mobilities and political networks.
Dawood Azami is an award-winning senior journalist and academic who works as a team manager at BBC World Service in London. He previously served as BBC World Service Bureau Chief and Editor in Kabul (2010 to 2011) and has held visiting scholar and teaching positions at The Ohio State University and the University of Westminster. He holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations and three masters degrees. His research interests include global geopolitics, great-power competition, sustainable development, state-building, hybrid insecurity, artificial intelligence, and strategic communication. A multilingual writer and artist, he has published articles and book chapters in several languages and also writes poetry and short stories.
Co-Chairs
Adam Hanieh, Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute, and Subir Sinha, Director of the SOAS South Asia Institute.
