Dale Hudson
Associate Professor of Film and New Media; Global Network Associate Professor of Film and New Media
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: BA, Bucknell University; MA, New York University; PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Research Areas: art, ecologies, and globalizations; postcolonial and transnational film and digital media; film and visual culture in Middle East [Southwest Asia], North Africa, South Asia (MENASA [SWANASA]), especially the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula
Dale Hudson’s research focuses on film, digital media, and visual art as sites to understand the structural inequalities of colonialism, imperialism, and globalism, including free-market capitalism and global warming. His work has been translated into Arabic, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Russian.
His recent publications and programming focus on two interdisciplinary areas of inquiry: (1) locating ecological and environmentalist modes of contestation to privatization and financialization of resource and knowledge extraction, particularly through documentary, experimental and interactive modes, and (2) understanding film, visual, and digital media within and against the Western-defined areas or regions of Middle East [Southwest Asia], North Africa, South Asia (MENASA [SWANASA]), especially the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, by focusing on historical interconnections and interdependencies.
He is author of Vampires, Race, and Transnational Hollywoods, co-author with Patricia R. Zimmermann of Thinking through Digital Media: Transnational Environments and Locative Places, and co-editor with Alia Yunis of a special double issue of Middle East Journal of Culture and Communicationtitled “Film and Visual Media in the Gulf: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives” and Reorienting the Middle East: Film and Digital Media Where the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean Meet.
His essays and other writings appear in Afterimage, American Quarterly, Arabian Humanities, Cinema Journal, Film Quarterly, Jadaliyya, Journal of Palestine Studies, Jump Cut, Media + Environment, Screen, Social Research, Studies in Documentary Film, Studies in South Asian Film and Media, and other journals and anthologies.
With NYUAD colleagues, he curated Elemental Relations, an exhibit of eco-art and ecomedia by students and graduates of NYU Abu Dhabi’s BA and MFA arts programs as part of Personal Structures 2024 at the European Cultural Centre–Italy, alongside the Art Biennale of Venice. He has curated and co-curated annual online exhibitions of digital media for the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) since 2007. He has served as a member of the board of directors for the Association of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies (AGAPS) since 2017 and has coordinated Films from the Gulf at the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Film Festival since 2016. He also programs art exhibitions and film series, mostly related to the Gulf, with the NYUAD Art Gallery and NYUAD Institute.