Profile

Biography

Dr Luisa Gandolfo is the Altajir Lecturer in Post-war Recovery Studies at the University of York’s Department of Politics and the PRDU in September, 2011. Dr Gandolfo joined York from Durham University’s Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies where she was a CASAW (Centre for Advanced Study of the Arab World) Post-doctoral Research Fellow studying the online activism and identity construction in the Arab blogosphere.

Research

Overview

Dr Gandolfo’s research interests reside in the Levant and North Africa, with particular foci on identity, nationalism, online activism, conflict and inter-faith relations in Palestine/Israel, Jordan and Tunisia.

Current Projects:

• Online activism in the Arab World: gender, identity and revolution in Palestine/Israel, Tunisia and Egypt
• Christian Evangelical political discourse and third party intervention in the Arab-Israeli conflict
• The Role of Women in Institution-Building in Palestine/Israel
• Preaching peace: grassroots inter-faith movements in Palestine/Israel

Publications

Selected publications

Since 2008 Dr Gandolfo has published within the journals Mediterranean Politics, Middle East Quarterly, Radical History Review, Middle East Journal and the Arab Studies Journal on youth, society and cyberactivism in Jordan, contemporary Iranian politics, conflict and Palestinian art, and religious and socioeconomic identities in the Palestinian communities of Jordan.

Forthcoming:

• Palestinians in Jordan: The Politics of Identity, by Luisa Gandolfo. I.B. Tauris. 2011.
• ‘Taking It To The Next Level: Youth, Society and Home-grown CyberNetworks in Jordan.’ Mediterranean Politics, [Forthcoming] 2011.

• ‘(Cyber)Palestine and the Quest for a National Identity.’ Chapter in La communication électronique : enjeux de langues, edited by Sami Zlitni and Fabien Lienard. (Limoges: Lambert-Lucas). 2011.
• ‘Birthing Democracy: The Role of Women in the Democratic Discourse of the Middle East’. Chapter in The Secret History of Democracy, edited by Benjamin Isakhan and Stephen Stockwell. Palgrave. 2011.
• ‘The Voice of the Youth?: The Emergence of Radical Political Islam in Jordan’. Chapter in Dilemmas of Democracy in the Middle East: Cases from Turkey, Jordan and Israel, edited by Krzysztof Koscielniak, Krakow: UNUM Publishing House. 2010. 
• ‘Iranian Ambitions: Who Rules Iran?,’ co-authored with Dr Reza Molavi, University of Durham. Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2010, Volume XVII, No. 1. pp. 61-68.
• 'Representations of Conflict: Images of War, Resistance, and Identity in Palestinian Art,’ Radical History Review, Winter 2010, Vol. 2010 No. 106. pp. 47-68.
• The Political and Social Identities of the Palestinian Christian Diaspora in Jordan,’ Middle East Journal, Number 3, Summer 2008. pp. 437-455.
• ‘Bridging the Economic Gap: the Rise and Fall of the Middle Class in Jordan,’ Arab Studies Journal. Fall 2007 / Spring 2008. pp. 100-123.
• ‘The international politics of peak oil and energy policy,’ co-authored with Dr Reza Molavi. E-International Relations. 28 July, 2009.
• ‘From Dierkes to Protests: Freedom of Expression in All Its Hideous Glory,’ Global Comment. 11 March, 2009.
• ‘Director, Pioneer, and Godfather of Egyptian Cinema: Remembering Youssef Chahine,’ Arab Comment. 29 July, 2008.
• ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Scarf? The Censure of the Keffiyeh,’ Global Comment. 4 June, 2008.