The 2003 US-led invasion no doubt broke the power of the state censor, inaugurated freedom of expression, and led to radical changes in Iraqi cultural practices. The Iraqi post-2003 cultural scene is marked by the emergence of novels and short stories that are re-claiming the public sphere after years of suppression under the Baath. There is also a tendency to re-read the modern history of Iraq and the sociology of communal relationships since the foundation of modern State. In addition, the last few years have witnessed a strong trend of re-publication of various earlier texts that were banned under Saddam's regime. The dispersion of intellectuals and writers in the mushrooming media outlets led them to be more involved in politics and sectarian and ethnic fights. Also, intellectuals have been trying to get recognition for their role in Iraqi culture and politics. The period since 2003 saw a clear distinction between three cultural groups: intellectuals of inside / intellectuals of outside (diaspora)/ Baathist intellectuals. The proposed study will discuss the three groups, highlighting the differences between those cultural figures who remained in Saddam's Iraq and those who left the country. Interactions between the two groups since 2003 have been problematic. Most importantly, the collapse of the authoritarian regime gave an opportunity for ethnic cultures to assert themselves. The proposed study will examine to what extent ethnic cultures have recovered their identities. The historic Al Mutanabi Street book market in Baghdad, the target of a horrific car bombing three years ago, has been renovated. Its bookstores and stalls now display a very large diversity of books from Iraq and Arab countries. One can easily see the contradictions in juxtaposition: secular and religious books are displayed side by side on the same book shelf. Also, many publishing houses have been established, with several (e.g., Al Jamal and Al Mada) relocating from the diaspora to Iraq. One might assume that the 2003 political earthquake would have made it easy for the leftist cultural trend to reassert itself. However, it seems that leftist intellectuals have abandoned their role in favor of getting involved in partisan dailies and political and sectarian polarization. The post invasion era, in a word, has not only witnessed the rise of the ethnic and sectarian intellectual but also the diminishing presence and role of the secular intellectual in the cultural arena and in the public sphere.

Liberal Mass Media in/on Iraq The need for transnational connectivity between activists and different communities is apparent especially post-September 11th and now during the occupation of Iraq. Transnational connectivity, a term Inderpal Grewal uses in her book Transnational America, refers to the "accessibility of information technology: whether some people are able to access information to be a part of the 'global' community and how they access technology" (Grewal, 2005, 23). Americans may receive plural points of view through connectivity via media and Internet, but much of it creates (mis)education and misunderstandings. I will explore popular American and independent media such as Internet news sources, magazines, and photojournalism for answers to the question of "how can we relate to people when our lived experiences are very different from theirs" Unfortunately, these types of media are only accessible to certain subjects. They are also limited in their ability to represent a diverse group of people without essentializing that group by an American Orientalist framework while also promoting a pro-occupation stance. In the past few years, liberal media sources have reported stories of injury and death pertaining to gay bashing in Iraq without considering the nuances of Iraqi society, such as family structures and the affects of the lack of basic human rights due to the U.S. invasion and occupation. I demonstrate how misguided American liberals manifest their rescue fantasies for Iraqis who share commonalities between themselves in terms of struggling for civil rights, specifically global women's and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) rights.

My most current ongoing project, Between Two Rivers (Photography, 2008-2010) inscribes violence on the body, referencing the war in Iraq. I am mirroring the language of terror by physically altering my body and face. The barbed wire-barricaded landscape of Iraq is represented by a severing gash across both of my cheeks; the mediated imagery of a once proud moment in contemporary Iraqi history, the purple stained fingers for the first democratic vote in 2005, is now reflected as a gushing wound on my index finger. Tattoos, scarification (for healing purposes), and traditional Iraqi identity markers are subverted to speak about the once proud cradle of civilization. The shape of the Fertile Crescent is presented as a birthmark or branding on my cheek. The mapping of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers run tattooed across my face and join at my neck. And other images converge the markings of historical pride and contemporary peril, such as the evoking one of Iraq's most famous landmarks, the Malwiya Minaret. The structure is evoked in large cascading welts across my neck, as if a layered strangulation marks. It is dedicated to a woman in Iraq who sits on death row, a monumental scapegoat in the dysfunctional Iraqi government and system. Imaging death, violence, war and occupation is a difficult and sensitive process. I spend much of my available research time reading, interviewing refugees, survivors and political prisoners, traveling to parts of the Middle East where I can experience the suffering and humiliation first hand, and meditating on how best I can serve these issues. I am not interested in being sensationalistic or exploiting the suffering of my people. That is why I primarily use my own body in depicting such suffering; I believe it to be more just. By using my body in the work, I attach my own understandings of the issues being performed.

Mourning rituals continue to be expressed through varied creative practices in migratory and transnationalist spaces. These rituals attempt through creative practices to commemorate, narrate and reclaim a history, celebrate a community, provide a methodology for resistance, healing, as well as survival. My art installation, film, photography and written work are in dialogue with these multiple cultural iterations of ritual that through varied and complex aesthetics and creative practices weave together a collective history of trauma. I intend to invoke a space for a transformative lens that explores the intersections of memory, ritual, and creative expressions and their role in engendering a politic of survival and resistance. I began my reconstruction of the sacred by conceptually, visually and materially constructing a journey into 'Ashura as ritual and art. The art installation is a material translation, an interpretive conceptual and creative expression of displacement, memory, narrative, and cultural recovery through the prism of the sacred. The photographs and installations function as portals carrying bits and pieces of memories and narratives, to serve the purpose of personal and collective archives (my own and that of the women). The creative practice of constructing the exhibit (as a place for recovery and a material tool for resistance) is my attempt at reinterpreting and preserving a marginalized (that of Iraqi, Shi'a women and my own) culture and history from oblivion due to state oppression, wars, as well as neo-colonial and imperial projects which have resulted in the mass exodus of millions of Iraqis into the diasporas.