What Is This? And Who Are You?

Reflections from Lebanese writer, researcher and podcaster Elia Ayoub on memory, hauntings, liminality, authoritarianism, and alternative futurities.

Host of The Fire These Times.

Based in Sussex, England.

Some stuff about me

1. I grew up in Lebanon and spent most of my 20s as an activist and organizer in Beirut and Mount Lebanon.
   
   I focused on environmental issues as well as social issues. I was one of the organizers of the 2015 uprising and I took part in the 2019 one. I’ve also campaigned for the abolition of the Kafala system, for the legalization of civil marriage, for LGBTQ+ rights and for a secular and multi-ethnic state.
   
   I’m also Palestinian.

2. My academic background is primarily in cultural studies, history, philosophy and political science.
   
   I have a PhD in cultural analysis from the University of Zurich (“hauntings and temporalities in postwar Lebanese cinema”) and a MA in Cultural Studies from SOAS University of London (“Hebrew, Yiddish and the contemporary debates on Zionism.”)

3. I'm also a fellow of the Post Growth Institute and an Associate Researcher at Lebanon's Center for Social Sciences Research and Action.

4. I’m published in Al Jazeera, +972Mag, Shado Mag, AlJumhuriya.net, The New Internationalist, Global Voices Online, L’Orient Today, The New Arab, Middle East Eye, RS21, LSE Middle East Blogs, Crimethinc and Mangal Media, among others.

5. I’m an editor at Shado Mag.
   
   I was also previously SWANA/MENA editor at IFEX and Global Voices and I’ve worked as a communications consultant for various Syrian, Lebanese, British and Swiss NGOs and think tanks.

6. I'm the editor of “Enab Baladi: Chronicling the Syrian Revolution” and I've written various book chapters and academic papers, mostly on Lebanon, Syria and Israel-Palestine.

7. I am the host of The Fire These Times podcast and co-founder of From The Periphery media collective.
   
   I'm also co-producer of Syria: The Inconvenient Revolution with Leila Al-Shami and of Resistance is Fertile: An Anarcho-Trekkie Podcast on Star Trek with carla joy bergman.

Convinced?

Please consider subscribing here. If you can afford it, consider a paid subscription. Most of what I do is unpaid because we continue to live in the stupidest timeline, aka neoliberal capitalism, so until we get rid of that small thing this is what I gotta do.

How to contact me:

The easiest way is to send me an email at ayoub@thefirethesetimes.com and I’ll do my best to respond when I can.