2024 Silversides Artist Series and Student Workshop

Professor Samer Al-Saber is an artist/scholar and Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Stanford University. As artist/scholar, his fieldwork intersects with theatre practice as a director and writer. His work appeared in Theatre Research International, Alt.Theatre, Performance Paradigm, Critical Survey, Theatre Survey, Jadaliyya, Counterpunch, This Week In Palestine, and various edited volumes, such as Palgrave’s Performing For Survival, Edinburgh Press’ Being Palestinian, and the Freedom Theatre’s recently published Performing Cultural Resistance in Palestine. He is the co-editor of the anthology Stories Under Occupation and Other Plays from Palestine (Seagull Press/University of Chicago Press) and Arab, Politics, Performance (Routledge - Forthcoming). He edited a collection of plays: Youth Plays from Gaza (Bloomsbury Press). Courses taught include: Performing Identities, Race and Performance, Advanced Directing: Actor-Director Dialog, Making Your Own Solo Show, Edward Said: Scholar Vs Empire, Performing Arabs, Introduction to Comparative Race and Ethnicity, New Play Development, and World Theater History. Samer serves on the advisory boards of Arab Stages and Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco. Before joining Stanford, he has taught at various institutions (Davidson College, Florida State University) on a wide range of topics, including Conflict and Theatre, Arab Theatre and Culture, Palestinian Theatre, Staging Islam and American Politics, and Orientalism and the Victorians. At Stanford, he teaches courses concerned with identity, race, and ethnicity at the intersection of Islam and the Arts His international research is focused on the cultural dimensions of the Arab World, the Middle East, and Islamicate regions. He has taught widely on topics of Western and non-Western theater as well as American, Middle Eastern, and Global performance.