UROP Project

Middle East North Africa, Theatre, digital humanities, database, website development, archives

Research Mentor: Dr. Sarah Fahmy, she, hers
Department, College, Affiliation: School of Theatre, Fine Arts
Contact Email: sfahmy@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor):
Research Assistant Supervisor Email:
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:

Looking for Research Assistants: Yes
Number of Research Assistants: 1
Relevant Majors: Open to all majors
Project Location: Remote
Research Assistant Transportation Required: No, the project is remote
Remote or In-person: Fully Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 5-7,
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link: Wednesday September 4th from 2:30 - 3pm ET: https://fsu.zoom.us/j/8826419924

Project Description

The Middle Eastern North African (MENA) Theatre Scholarship Handbook is the first open-access digital repository of its kind. It is an initiative by the board of the Middle Eastern Theatre (MET) focus group at the Association of Theatre in Higher Education Conference—one of the largest, most notable academic conferences in theatre academe. The MET Focus Group at ATHE is the only long-term group established at an academic theatre conference in the US that is dedicated to MENA theatre and performance, and only the second in the world; to date.
The Handbook, which is an iterative collaboration between scholars, students, and practitioners around the world, is still in its early stages of archiving and research generation, yet has already been used as a pedagogy and research tool by scholars and students worldwide. Upon completion, it will serve as a central, comprehensive repository of historic and contemporary MENA theatre in the region and diasporas, and scholarship pertaining to it. Through this handbook, we hope to extend research and pedagogical support, connect emerging and senior scholars in the MENA theatre field, as well as provide an accessible entry point to help those who are less familiar with MENA theatre histories and scholarship. The Handbook includes: (1) Plays from the region and its diasporas, in English and regional languages. Each play is listed with a synopsis, casting breakdown, key words, instructions on how to access the script, notable production history, reviews by critics, video archival footage, and scholars who can guest lecture on them. (2) Published anthologies of plays and instructions on how to access them. (3) Academic resources, including books, peer-reviewed journal articles, podcasts, recorded lectures, interviews, websites, digital resources, and play databases. (4) A list of MENA scholars in the US and abroad and their areas of research and contact information. (5) A list of notable MENA theatre companies in the US and abroad and their specialties.


Research Tasks: • Data collection: Researching and cataloguing scholarship, videos, plays and their production histories, etc. and entering them into the Handbook database.
• Data visualization: Selecting public-facing data visualization software, and preliminary development and curation of content for the website.
• Enhancing usability of the Handbook. This includes designing user-friendly future data collection surveys (this is how website visitors will submit entries from the website).


Skills that research assistant(s) may need: Required:
• Have interest in Middle Eastern North African performance histories and communities.
• Be self-guided, thorough and detail oriented, trustworthy, reliable, and eager to share/ take ownership of your ideas to advance the research.
• Be capable of designing surveys for qualitative data input that connects to Google Sheets.
• Have experience with website development or humanities data curation and visualization (or something similar).
Recommended:
• Have experience in digital humanities, library science, website development, archiving of humanities resources.
• Be proficient with Google Forms & Sheets.
• (Extra bonus skill, beyond required or recommended skills): Have proficient reading and listening comprehension in any of the languages of the MENA region (including French as there is a lot of North African Francophone literature).