New Media Public Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow
Chloe Bordewich is an historian focused on empire, media, and language politics in the modern Middle East. She received her PhD in history and Middle Eastern studies from Harvard University (2022) and subsequently held a postdoctoral fellowship in public history at Boston University, working with the U.S. National Archives Museum. From 2023-24, she was the JHI-CDHI Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow. Chloe is also a founder of the Boston Little Syria Project, which documents Boston’s first Arabic speaking community through walking tours, in exhibitions, and online. Her current book project explores the fight for freer access to information in colonial and postcolonial Egypt. While at the JHI in 2024-25, she will be working on a bilingual (Arabic/English) play that explores the everyday impact of surveillance amid the destruction of Cairo’s historic tombs.
Fellowship Research Project—“Paradise Expressway”
Chloe’s project for 2024-25 is a one-act play that explores the intimate consequences of surveillance amid the destruction of Cairo’s historic tombs. Performed in a mix of Arabic and English, the work will challenge audience members to grapple with the fallout from conclusions based on misdirected attention and eavesdropped conversations.