Michel Madanat, "Media Control and Palestinian Censorship: How American Media Manufactures Public Consent for Genocide"
Throughout the past year, the Israeli state has been systematically committing a genocide against the indigenous Palestinian population of Gaza as an extension of its settler colonial project. The last year has also seen an unprecedented paradigm shift in which public support for Zionism has diminished considerably, with protests held in major U.S. cities demanding an arms embargo on Israel and student encampments demanding that universities divest from the Israeli apartheid state and the corporations affiliated with it. However, this shift has rarely been recognized by major American news outlets and social media platforms, and the voices of Palestinians have been silenced and replaced with misinformation.
Relying on Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) as a theoretical lens, this paper will examine how American media has taken control over the narrative of the Palestinian genocide. I argue that this has been executed on two dimensions, that of the perpetrator and that of the victim. I will first assert that American media outlets have consistently erased the perpetrator in the Palestinian genocide, using language and images that frame the massacres committed by Israel as humanitarian crises where the aggressor is absent. I will then demonstrate how Palestinian voices have largely been missing from American reporting or blatantly silenced if present. These two dimensions together alleviate the perpetrator of any accountability for war crimes and human rights violations and erase the voices of Palestinian journalists and activists calling for justice. Renowned newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post manufacture a false narrative embedded within a censorship system that pacifies the American public and enables their consent for a US-sponsored genocide against the indigenous population of Palestine.
Finally, I will conclude by discussing forms of resistance that have been adopted by Arab academics and activists as liberatory practice. These forms of resistance include bypassing social media algorithms which attempt to silence their messages and establishing independent platforms outside of social media.
Soodeh Mansouri, "Iranian Women's Online Resistance for Bodily Autonomy"
“Neither East, Nor West” is the main slogan of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran. According to this slogan, the Islamic Republic of Iran has chosen various domains to demonstrate its anti-capitalistic and anti-imperialistic stance during its four decades of governance. One of these domains is the female body. The Iranian woman’s body, as a symbol to represent the Islamic government's values and its anti-imperialistic and anti-capitalistic position, has been a significant sphere through which socio-political issues are conveyed to the world. The enforcement of veiling (Hijab), the covering of the entire body with the chador, and the avoidance of colorful clothing are some of the key markers the Islamic government uses to project its values through the regulation of women’s bodies.
However, women’s resistance against the ideological commodification of their bodies by the Islamist regime has persisted over the last four decades. There have been numerous activities, such as street protests and civil resistance against compulsory veiling or restrictions on clothing choices. The latest protest against discriminatory rules toward women escalated into a social movement in Iran in 2022, known as “Woman, Life, Freedom.” While the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement is often described as a failed movement, I believe that the resistance against the ideological use of women’s bodies is stronger today and continues with more intensity. In this paper, I will focus on the ongoing resistance by women for their right to control their bodies in the post-movement era in 2024, specifically on online platforms, with a focus on X (formerly Twitter). I will analyze the trending resistance tweets related to women’s bodily autonomy. My methodology involves content analysis of the tweet texts, and data collection will be based on the snowball sampling method by following tweets participating in this genre.
Kate Yuan, "Psychological Wage of Misogyny: An Existentialist Lens on Deepfake"
This paper examines the crisis of gender-based digital violence through the phenomenon of deepfake pornography and its use as a tool for mass humiliation within misogynistic communities like incel groups. Central to this crisis are “humiliation rooms”—digital spaces dedicated to sharing deepfake pornography targeting specific women, including mothers, sisters, and acquaintances. Here, sexual humiliation is weaponized to assert dominance, revealing a new dimension of technologically enabled gender violence that exploits anonymity and scale. Although humiliation is central to understanding digital gender violence, it remains under-explored. This paper addresses this gap by examining how deepfake technology amplifies large-scale, anonymous humiliation and misogyny, making these discussions urgent and timely.
To analyze this crisis, I draw on W.E.B. Du Bois’s concept of the “psychological wage of whiteness” to introduce a “psychological wage of masculinity,” wherein men derive compensatory value from subjugating women in the digital realm. Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist framework, particularly his concepts of “the look” and “bad faith,” illuminates the desire to reduce women to objects, reflecting existential anxiety over women’s autonomy. Simone de Beauvoir’s gendered parallel between racial and gendered oppression further reveals how patriarchal societies render women as the “Other,” positioning their bodies as sites of control and shame.
Through this existential lens, I propose solutions focused on dismantling objectifying structures and reinforcing subjectivity for both genders. Sartre’s concept of the “third person” suggests disrupting collective objectification through external accountability, advocating for legislative measures that enable third-party monitoring of digital spaces. Meanwhile, Beauvoir’s emphasis on self-assertion highlights the importance of cultivating digital and public realms where women can reclaim autonomy and resist objectification. These strategies contribute to a necessary rethinking of human dignity and autonomy in our technologically mediated world, bridging enduring human values with the pressing ethical challenges of our digital age.
Speakers 
Masters, Simmons University
My academic research explores power and identity, post-colonial theory, and gender and sexuality in the Arab world. I am interested in understanding how to conduct research in a way that does not reproduce settler colonial structures.
PhD, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Sunday March 23, 2025 10:30am - 11:45am EDT
Room 124
Stata Center, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02167
