Aida Bardissi is a poet & PhD student of Middle East Studies at New York University.

Her doctoral project examines films of the Nasser era as an inquiry into constructions of national ‘authenticity’ — particularly as it relates to the question(s) of race, temporality, and indigeneity. The project acts as an invitation to reimagine indigenous studies by relocating the Arabic-speaking world and the broader Maghreb into conversations of liberation that extend beyond regional bifurcations. Her research seeks to address the myth of Egyptian civilisationism through its various sites of promulgation, including museum and performance studies, media and cinema studies, and liberation psychology.

You will likely find her watching The Twilight Zone.