Eyad Houssami

Eyad Houssami writes about the environment, culture, and history of science. His first book as editor, Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre (2012), was published in Arabic and English. After studying at Yale, he moved to Syria and then Lebanon, where he lived for more than a decade. There, he trained as an apprentice on the revitalization of an ancient organic farm. He later completed a doctorate at the University of Leeds, fully supported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. His individual projects have been supported by the likes of the Prince Claus Fund (The Netherlands), Sundance Institute (US), and the Saison Foundation (Japan). A nonprofit leader and management consultant, he has established international organizations in Lebanon, Germany, and the United States. Currently, he is working on a monograph about agriculture, universities, and development in the mid-twentieth century. 

Qualifications:

PhD, University of Leeds, Environmental Humanities and History, 2021–25 
Apiculture Certificate, SOILS Permaculture Association Lebanon, 2017 
Apprentice, Bassatin Baanoub, ancient organic farm, Lebanon, 2015–19 
BA, Yale University, Theatre Studies and Political Science, Cum Laude and Distinction in the Major, 2007
Languages: native English, fluent Arabic, advanced French, advanced German (C1 Hochschule Zertifikat) 

Publications

Books and Edited Volumes

Editor, Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre. London: Pluto Press, 2012.
Editor, Innana Mahkumun bi-l-ʾAmal: Kitabat fi al-Masrah. Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 2012. Arabic edition of Doomed by Hope.
Editor-in-chief, project director, Marsah: Theatre Texts | marsah.org. Digital platform of international plays and commentary authored in and translated to Arabic. Beirut: Masrah Ensemble, 2019. 

Playwright, Mama Butterfly. In Rusted Radishes, 2013; Asymptote, 2015. 

Book chapters

“A Gazelle Named Fluorine: On Industrial Agriculture and the University in 1950s Lebanon.” In Non-Western Approaches to the Environmental Humanities, edited by Gabriela Jarzębowska, Aleksandra Ross, and Krzysztof Skonieczny. Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, 2025. 

Introduction to Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre. London and Beirut: Pluto Press and Dar al-Adab, 2012. 

Journal articles

“Lebanon’s Debut in the World of Tomorrow.” Archival piece about the New York World’s Fair 1939. In Portal 9, “The Imagined.” Beirut: Solidere, 2012. 

“Global Consciousness and Cosmopolitanism in Appendice by Lina Saneh.” Peer-reviewed article, Ecumenica: Performance and Religion 1, no. 2 (October 2008): 11–21. 

Reviews

“Book Review: Geologic Life: Inhuman Intimacies and the Geophysics of Race by Kathryn Yusoff.” Peer reviewed, Critical Inquiry, July 18, 2025.
“Book Review: Nomad’s Land: Pastoralism and French Environmental Policy in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean World by Andrea Duffy.” Peer reviewed, Jadaliyya, 2022. 

“Book Review: Oh, Salaam! by Najwa Barakat.” Arablit, 2016.
“Book Review: Vanished by Ahmed Masoud.” Full Stop, 2015. 

“Book Review: Desiring Arabs by Joseph Massad.” Bidoun, 2008. 

Other Publications

I have written for Warscapes, NewsDeeply, Jadaliyya, The National, and more. 

Conferences and Presentations

Conferences and Program Organisation

Producer, “Doomed by Hope Theatre Series: Book Tour and Program,” talks with workshops, performances, and film screenings at Columbia, New York, Rowan, and Yale universities as well as Bard College, spring 2013.

Co-Convener, “Arab Theatre Today,” Dancing on the Edge, two-day academic and cultural program in Amsterdam plus talks in Rotterdam and Utrecht, November 14–5, 2013.

Co-Chair, “Transnational Tides and the Future of the Arab City: A Conference on Urban Sustainability,” Yale Arab Alumni Association, about 30 international speakers and more than 250 attendees, American University of Beirut, October 2–3, 2009. 

Invited Academic Talks

“Bassatin Baanoub and Agriculture in Lebanon.” Rachel Carson Center, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, October 17, 2023.

“Doomed by Hope and Making Theatre.” The Saison Foundation, Tokyo, September 5, 2014.

“Arab Theatre Today.” Alif Institute, Atlanta, May 15, 2013.

Doomed by Hope book tour with presentations in various cities in the United States, The Netherlands, and Australia. 

Academic Conference Presentations

“Unlearning Filāḥa: Knowing Agriscience in Modern Lebanon,” workshop presentation at École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, June 5, 2024.

“A Gazelle Named Fluorine: On Industrial Agriculture and the University in 1950s Lebanon,” British Society for Middle East Studies: Ecology, Crisis, and Power in the Middle East, University of Exeter, July 3–5, 2023.

“Eco-Epistemic Rupture in Decolonial and Postcolonial Perspective,” Non-Western Approaches to the Environmental Humanities, University of Warsaw, July 11, 2022.

“Global Consciousness and Cosmopolitanism in Appendice by Lina Saneh,” International Federation for Theatre Research, Chung-Ang University, South Korea, July 14–9, 2008.

“Reimagining Sovereignty on the Lebanese Stage,” International Federation for Theatre Research, Stellenbosch, South Africa, July 10–4, 2007.

“The Theatre Ensemble in Cairo and Beirut,” American Society for Theatre Research, Chicago, November 16–9, 2006.

Other Conferences and Symposia

Workshop Participant, Environmental Humanities Institute, Colby College, Maine, August 1–7, 2022.

Panel Moderator, “This Is Not Lebanon,” Kuenstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt, August 28–9, 2021.

Guest Artist, “Deep Theatre History in Mesopotamia,” Working Group for a New Spirit | The Bushwick Starr, New York/Online, Autumn 2020.

Panel Moderator, “Crossing Oceans,” Spielart Festival (performing arts), Munich, November 3–4, 2017.

Panelist, “Artistic Mobility,” International Experimental Theatre Meeting, Beirut, October 6–9, 2016.

Workshop Participant, “Future City: Doha,” expedition and forum on urbanism, Mathaf – Qatar Museums Authority, December 13–4, 2013.

Presenter, “Shifting Sands” Symposium – Artspace Visual Arts Centre, Sydney, and Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide, August 23–5, 2013.

Panelist, “Notes towards an Art Scene: Art from the Imagined Arab World,” Cornerhouse, Manchester, April 13, 2012.

Conference Presenter, “Masrah Ensemble and Doomed by Hope,” Sharjah Art Foundation March Meeting, Sharjah, March 15, 2011.

Panelist, “Solo Performance and Arab American Identity,” Arab American National Museum, Diwan: Inaugural Forum on the Arts, 2006. 

 

Podcasts (as host on New Books Network: Environmental Studies)

“Davide Rodogno, Night on Earth: A History of International Humanitarianism in the Near East, 1918–1930,” September 2, 2023.

“Munira Khayyat, A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon,” December 18, 2022.

“Max Ajl, A People’s Green New Deal,” July 5, 2022.

“Adam M. Romero, Economic Poisoning: Industrial Waste and the Chemicalization of American Agriculture,” May 30, 2022.

“Jo Handelsman, A World without Soil: The Past, Present, and Precarious Future of the Earth beneath Our Feet,” March 7, 2022.

“Kate Rigby, Reclaiming Romanticism: Towards an Ecopoetics of Decolonisation,” December 10, 2021