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Project Summary

In Authoritarian Apprehensions, Lisa Wedeen draws on her decades-long engagement with Syria to analyze the revolutionary exhilaration of the Syrian uprising’s initial days and then the devastating violence that shattered hopes of any quick undoing of dictatorship. Developing a theoretical approach within the frame of emerging forms of authoritarianism worldwide, Wedeen asks: What led a sizable part of the Syrian citizenry to stick by the regime through one atrocity after another? What happens to political judgment in a context of pervasive misinformation? And what does the Syrian example tell us about how authoritarian leaders exploit digital media to create uncertainty, political impasses, and fractures among their citizens? Based on extensive fieldwork and drawing on material from a variety of Syrian artistic practices, Wedeen lays bare the ideological investments that sustain ambivalent attachments to established organizations of political power and contribute to the ongoing challenge of pursuing political change.

Data Abstract

The project contains three forms of data:

1. Selected video-clips from the popular television comedy series, Day`a daay`a (A Forgotten Village [2008, 2010]) and from the sketches Amal—ma fi (Hope—There Isn’t Any, [2004]) captioned in English by Lisa Wedeen with the help of Osama Esber, Sofia Fenner, and the staff at Sama Art International. These series are available without English subtitles at various sites online. The episodes are discussed in chapter two, “Humor in Dark Times.”
2. Statistical materials analyzed in the appendix to chapter 1 of the book.
3. A list of all URLs used in the book with archived versions of the links in perma.cc, webrecorder.io, or the Internet Archive

Standard access for all files. All videos are under copyright and published by permission.