Gender, Representations, and Digital Media: Reclaiming Empowerment by Marginalized Communities

This semester, the New University in Exile Consortium (https://newuniversityinexileconsortium.org/) is offering 9 Co-Led Online Seminars (https://us.list-manage.com/xzteMJ8P_2k?e=f0fc827157&c2id=593e3b1ca404e601b5f4ee87a5d671d1) which are FREE and open to anyone anywhere in the world. Taught by two endangered scholars – one who is hosted by a Consortium member institution, and the other a colleague of their choice - the seminars are designed to reconnect endangered scholars with the academic community they have lost while in exile, and provide learning opportunities that would not otherwise be available.

This seminar introduces key concepts for understanding gender, representation, and empowerment in the age of digital media. Women from war-torn regions such as Syria are frequently portrayed in English-language media and scholarship as passive victims in need of rescue, while refugee men are often framed as threatening figures or potential security risks.

These reductive and racialized representations erase historical, political, and social agency, while reinforcing global hierarchies between the Global North and the Global South. The course examines how marginalized communities—particularly Syrian women—challenge and resist these dominant narratives by strategically using digital media to reclaim agency, assert dignity, and foster collective empowerment.

Through intersectional and decolonial feminist frameworks, participants will critically explore how media representations are shaped by race, gender, coloniality, war, and migration.This event is online: https://newuniversityinexileconsortium.org/updates/gender-representations-and-digital-media/