“Destructive Development” Talk by Dr. Farah Al-Nakib // 22nd Oct 7pm at CAP

The British Council, Contemporary Art Platform and the National Council for Culture Arts and Letters are pleased to invite you to a talk entitled “Destructive Development: Forgetting Kuwait’s Past Through Demolition and Heritage” by Dr. Farah Al-Nakib at CAP.

British Council is delighted to invite you to a talk delivered by the Academic Farah Al-Nakib. The talk analyzes the role that both the demolition of the urban landscape and the creation of sites of national heritage play in the destruction and forgetting of Kuwait’s past. It focuses on the current erasure of Kuwait’s modern era (1950s-1980s), and discusses possible reasons behind—and potential consequences of—this forgetting. It also identifies emerging cultural reactions to this process as attempts to remember Kuwait’s modern past.

Farah Al-Nakib is an Assistant Professor of History and Director of the Center for Gulf Studies at the American University of Kuwait. She obtained her PhD in Near and Middle East History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London in 2011. Her research focuses on the urban history of Kuwait City before and after oil, including current urban trends in the Gulf in the 21st century.