Christa Salamandra

is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Lehman College, City University of New York.  She received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, where she also served as Postdoctoral Research Associate, exploring the local/global dynamics in the development of what may be called an Arab London.  She has been a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at Lebanese American University in Beirut.  She is the author of a A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria (Indiana University Press, 2004). Her current fieldwork among Syrian television drama examines the recent expansion of the pan-Arab satellite TV industry.