What?

Observations on the Mashriq (Lebanon, Syria, Israel-Palestine) countries from an anti-authoritarian writer, postdoc researcher, occasional journalist, and part-time anarchist from the region.

Hello.

My name is Elia Ayoub and I launched this newsletter to explore political ghosts, the ones that refuse to be buried and the ones that have yet to manifest. I will focus on Lebanon, Israel-Palestine, Syria, the UK, and the US.

Did you really say ghosts?

Yes. They are better known as hauntings (hence ‘hauntologies’). Here's how I would explain it to the uninitiated: you are likely already familiar with ghosts as they are ubiquitous in popular culture. They are the souls of those who could not, for one reason or another, fully pass away. A different way of putting it would be to see hauntings, in the words of Mark Fisher, as the result of failed mourning. Sometimes, it's the result of having ‘unfinished business’ in the realm of the living. Basically, there's something preventing them from being fully at peace in death.

Think of the Dead Men of Dunharrow in Lord of the Rings, cursed for eternity for breaking an oath until the heir of Isildur (our boy Aragorn) held it fulfilled. They couldn't be mourned by anyone for they still had unfinished business in this realm.

Are we still talking about political hauntings?

Yes, sorry. I'm also a geek and a nerd so you'll get some of that in this newsletter as well. The point is that you already know what a haunting is because representations of ghosts, spirits, the undead, and so on are all around us in popular culture. It speaks to a deep fascination we have with this thing called death, but it speaks to a generalized unease about life as well.

This feels like too much.

I want to reassure you that you will be able to understand Hauntologies.net because I will try my best to make it as accessible as possible.

Ok you're weird but fine, I guess. Who are you again?

I hold a PhD from the University of Zurich in Cultural Analysis (Thesis: ‘Hauntings and Temporalities in Postwar Lebanese Cinema’), an MA from SOAS University of London in Cultural Studies (Thesis: ‘Jewish Identity and Language Politics: Hebrew, Yiddish and the contemporary debates on Zionism’) and a BS in Environmental Health from the American University of Beirut.

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 am the founder of The Fire These Times podcast as well as co-founder of the From The Periphery media collective. I'm an associate fellow the Post Growth Institute and an Associate Researcher of Lebanon's Center for Social Sciences Research and Action. I'm an editor at Shado Mag and a regular contributor to Al Jazeera, 972Mag and Al Jumhuriya in addition to also contributing to L'Orient Le-Jour/L'Orient Today, Lausan Collective, South South Movement, Arab Reform Initiative, New Lines Magazine, Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, El Diario, GenderIT, Rusted Radishes, Byline Times, Raseef22, Middle East Eye, The New Arab, and Waging Non-Violence. You can find my archives here.

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.

I've written a number of peer-reviewed journal articles as well as book chapters on social, political and/or environmental issues, mostly focusing on Syria, Lebanon and Israel-Palestine. I've also edited a book on the Syrian citizen journalism outlet Enab Baladi. They are documented at my ORCID link.

Convinced?

Great! Please consider subscribing here. It will always be free, but if you can afford it please consider a paid subscription. Most of what I do is unpaid because we continue to live in the dumbest timeline, aka neoliberal capitalism, so until we get rid of capitalism this is what I gotta do.