Alia Soliman
Lecturer-Visual and Cultural Studies
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: MA American University in Cairo, PhD University College London
Research Websites: On Motherhood and its Shadows, Al Mashhad المشهد Research Kitchen
Research Areas: Decolonization of curricula, ekphrasis, museum studies, visual literacy, comparative literature, visual culture, art history, history in visuals, film studies, memory studies, 20th century history
Dr. Alia Soliman holds an MA in Comparative Literature from the American University in Cairo and a PhD in Cultural Studies from the Centre of Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry at University College London, UK. Her interest and teaching methods are interdisciplinary. She is a Pushcart nominated creative-critical writer who is fascinated by the connection between words and images. She has published several peer-reviewed articles on contemporary Arab visual art, ekphrastic writing, heritage and identity, reading and alterity, and the intersection of memory and image.
Her research interests and teaching strategies are cross-cultural and multidisciplinary. She has worked for years in several editorial roles with Alif Journal and Comparative Poetics and the Library of Arabic Literature. She has ongoing collaborations with Edinburgh University, Oxford University, University College London, University of Toronto, the Irish Association for American Studies, the Arts and Humanities Association in Italy, and the Art History Association in the UK, among others. She has published in the fields of creative and travel writing and creative criticism. She teaches visual literacy, comparative literature, art history, heritage studies, and film and new media. Her upcoming publications include her book Vision of Alterity in Literature, Visual Culture, and New Media, as well as two articles titled “Memories of the Migrant: Visual Expressions of Nostalgia in Contemporary Iraqi Art” and “Compulsive Visuality in Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station.”She is currently working on two research projects, titled “Climate Artivism: Expressions in Visual Culture and New Media” and “Art and the Experience of Incarceration: An Interdisciplinary Perspective.” She is part of a writing collective concerned with museum heritage and the preservation of looted museum artifacts amidst historical and contemporary power structures.