This is a conversation with Shareah Taleghani, Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies and Arabic at Queens College at the City University of New York and the author of the book "Readings in Syrian Prison Literature: The Poetics of Human Rights" published by Syracuse University Press.

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Topics Discussed:

• Background and context, Syrian prison literature
• Poetics of human rights, and how Syrian prison literature affected her view of human rights
• On Tadmor military prison
• On censorship, arbitrariness and tanfis in Syria
• Arab critics, literature and human rights
• Effects of truth
• Universality of prison literature
• Syrian prison literature and the 2011 revolution
• Selective solidarity and global prison abolitionism (US, Iran, Syria)

Also Mentioned:

• Faraj Bayrakdar
• Human Rights, Inc by Joseph Slaughter
• Supreme Court Justices Make a Surprising Proposal in Torture Case
• Hasiba Abdelrahman
• Mustapha Khalifa
• Rosa Yassin Hassan
• Malek Daghestani
• Ali Abu Dahan
• Heba Al-Dabbagh
• Tadmor film by Monica Borgmann & Lokman Slim
• Memory, violence and fear: Why Lokman Slim’s murder must not be depoliticized - my L'Orient Le Jour piece
• Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria by Lisa Wedeen
• Miriam Cooke
• The Politics of Love: Sexuality, Gender, and Marriage in Syrian Television Drama & Mediating the Uprising: Narratives of Gender and Marriage in Syrian Television Drama by Rebecca Joubin
• Nazih Abu Nidal
• Ghassan al-Jaba'i
• Maher Arrar
• 'Anticipating' the 2011 Arab Uprisings: Revolutionary Literatures and Political Geographies by Rita Sakr

Recommended Books:

• The Shell by Mustafa Khalifa
• A Dove in Free Flight by Faraj Bayrakdar
• Forced Passages by Dylan Rodríguez