Lecture | LUCIS What's New?! Series
Literature and Spaces of Conflicts: The Lebanese War Novel as Urban and Architectural History
- John Hanna
- Date
- Thursday 27 February 2025
- Time
- Serie
- What's New?! Spring Lecture Series 2025
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 0.30
How does literature capture and represent spaces of war? This lecture explores the intersection of literature and architecture, applying architectural and spatial theories and terminologies to literary texts.
It examines the transformation of domestic and urban spaces within several of Beirut’s central neighbourhoods, tracing how the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) reshaped lived environments, the social relationships within them, and their representations. In doing so, it approaches the Lebanese war novel as a one form of urban and architectural history writing.
About the speaker
John Hanna is an architect, lecturer and researcher. His research addresses the spatiality of urban conflicts with a focus on Paris and Beirut. John's wider research interests include Mediterranean and Red Sea port cities, quarantine spaces, architecture and literature, and urban histor(ies) of Africa and the Middle East, particularly in relation to colonialism and nationalism.