Mona Damluji’s scholarship illuminates critical media histories and cultural perspectives on oil, urban space and infrastructure focused upon the Middle East and its diasporas.
Mona is assistant professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, the Mellon Foundation and the Arab Council for Social Sciences. Mona’s current book project is Pipeline Cinema, the story of the entangled histories of oil and cinema in Iran and Iraq during the early twentieth century.
Mona’s writing appears in online and print publications, including:
“Oil Media Archives” in Petrocinema
“Afterlives of Oil Media in Media Fields
“The Image World of Middle Eastern Oil” in Subterranean Estates
“Baghdad through Latif Al-Ani’s Lens” in Jadaliyya
“Staging History” in Middle East Insights
“Visualizing Iraq” in Urban History
“Researching Iraq Today” in Arab Studies Journal
“Filmmaking in the Face of Iraq’s Unmaking” in Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies
“Documenting the Oil City” in Abadan Times
“Petroleum, Power and Prestige” in Arab Identities: Images in Film
“The Cinema of Iraqi Oil” in Middle East in London
“We are Iraqis [Review]” in AMCA
“City of Mirages" [Review]” in Jadaliyya
“A Child’s View from Gaza" [Review] in Jadaliyya
“Baghdad Arts Deco [Review]” in International Journal of Islamic Architecture
Ongoing Projects
Pipeline Cinema
Filmmaking in the Face of Iraq's Unmaking
Baghdad's Deep Dilemma