Dina Matar | |
|---|---|
 Matar in 2020 | |
| Born | March 1955 |
| Alma mater | |
| Employer | SOAS University of London |
| Spouse | John Taysom |
Dina Matar FRSA (born March 1955) is a professor of political communication and Arab media, with a focus on Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and chair of SOAS University of London's Centre for Global Media and Communication. Prior to academia, Matar was a news correspondent, editor, and analyst.
Matar grew up in Dheisheh refugee camp. Her father Henry Matar (1916–1933) was a professor. [1] Matar did her undergraduate Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Chemistry at the University of Jordan. In 1988, she moved to a suburb of London with her English husband John Taysom, whom she met in Bahrain, and their son. [2] [3] She went on to complete a Master of Science (MSc) in Comparative Politics in 1999 and a PhD in Media and Communication in 2005, both from the London School of Economics (LSE). [4]
Matar began her career in journalism, working as a correspondent for outlets such as Reuters . Upon completing her PhD, she became a research fellow at her alma mater the LSE and a journalism lecturer at City, University of London. She joined SOAS University of London in 2005 as a Professor. In 2014, she was made Chair of the university's Centre for Global Media and Communications. [4]
Alongside Lina Khatib, Tarik Soubry and John Esposito, Matar was a founding editor of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication . [5] Matar published her first book and monograph What it Means to be Palestinian: Stories of Palestinian Peoplehood in 2010, in which she collected interviews with Palestinians across the Levant on their personal and family stories contextualised with broader history. [6] She reunited with Khatib to co-author The Hizbullah Phenomenon (2014) with her and Alef Alshaer. [7] [8] She edited the volumes Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communications Practices in Lebanon and Palestine (2013) with Zahera Harb [9] and Gaza as Metaphor (2016) with Helga Tawil-Souri. [10]
From 2018 to 2024, [11] Matar chaired the Centre for Palestine Studies. From 2020 to 2022, she headed School of Interdisciplinary Studies. [4]
In October 2023, Matar was one of those over 800 scholars to warn of a potential genocide in Gaza. [12] Matar reunited with Tawil-Souri to edit the collection Producing Palestine: The Creative Production of Palestine through Contemporary Media. [13]