Join us for an evening with Sophia Al-Maria in conversation with University of Washington Williams Family Endowed Professor in History,  Arbella Bet-Shlimon. Al-Maria is a Qatari-American artist, writer, and filmmaker who interrogates legacies of colonialism and imagines alternative futures. Bet-Shlimon’s teaching and research focuses on the politics, society and economy of twentieth-century Iraq and the broader Persian Gulf region, as well as Middle Eastern urban history.  

Through sharing of personal stories and literary, journalistic, and scholarly references that have been crucial to their work, Al-Maria and Bet-Shlimon will explore how historical fiction and a critical study of histories can be acts of dissent while looking toward global social change. 

About the Speakers

Sophia Al-Maria has had solo exhibitions at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar; the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow; the Tate Britain, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; among other institutions. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London; LUMA Arles, France; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the New Museum, New York; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy; and numerous other venues. She has been writer in residence at the Whitechapel Gallery, London. She is the author of three books: Sad Sack (Book Works, London, 2019), Virgin with a Memory (Cornerhouse Publications, Manchester, 2014), and The Girl Who Fell to Earth (Harper Perennial, New York, 2012).

Arbella Bet-Shlimon is a historian of the modern Middle East. In her research and teaching she focuses on the politics, society and economy of twentieth-century Iraq and the broader Persian Gulf region, as well as Middle Eastern urban history. Among others her teaching has been recognized by the UW's Distinguished Teaching Award.