Hey everyone, Elia here

I wanted to let you all know that I’ll be giving online classes starting this January, and that I’m still accepting new people for the very first class, which is the only one I’m announcing at this time. I’ll explain in a bit how to register for the class, which you can already find in the description, and I recommend doing so asap as I’ve already had to open up a second class due to that amazing response I’ve received so far. But before doing that, I will tell you a bit about what we will be exploring in these 5 weeks. 

Register

So how can you register? It’s simple. Just send me an email at ayoub@thefirethesetimes.com or a Signal message @ ayoub.02

The class is entitled “Beware of Small States: An overview of Lebanon from 1975 to 2025.” It will happen once a week, each Saturday starting January 17th at 4pm UK time, for around 2 hours, although these could last longer if participants are interested. So these will be Jan 17, Jan 24, Jan 31, Feb 7, Feb 14. So in five parts.

As the title suggests, you will get an overview of Lebanese history and politics from 1975, with a focus on the so-called ‘postwar’ from 1990 onward (and I will explain why I say so-called postwar). We will go beyond sensationalist headlines and shallow coverage, and beyond simplistic, top-down explanations for the country. Instead of a linear timeline of events, which you can get from Wikipedia anyway, you will get a messy one. After all, politics is not linear. Political actors evoke events from the recent or not-so-recent past as part of their politics in the present. In addition to the structured syllabus that I will get into in a bit, I will use personal stories as someone who grew up in Lebanon in a very conservative, at times even Far Right, Christian environment, to explain how my own personal journey away from right-wing and towards left-wing, quasi-anarchist, politics has helped me understand Lebanon better, and hopefully help you too.

The sessions

I’ve organised the syllabus to follow the spirit of TFTT, that it to say informal and accessible. Over the course of the 5 sessions, we will be covering Lebanon from different, albeit interrelated, angles. At each step of the way you will have readings and/or podcast episodes that you can check out, but are not required to. I know folks are busy as is, so all you need to do is show up on the day of and do your best to engage and participate however you feel comfortable doing so. If you can’t make a session I can always record an audio version of it and send it to you. And if enough people are interested but cannot do Saturdays, I can open up Wednesday sessions at 6pm UK time. As I said, it is very informal. 

In week 1 (Jan 17),

entitled “the stories we tell ourselves about this painfully ordinary country,” we will look at some of the dominant narratives that have been passed on from one generation to the next about the so-called civil war, the period between 1975 and 1990 during which Lebanon experienced multiple wars in one. We will start with a detailed exploration of the ruling political classes of Lebanon and ask: How do they deal with contradictions within them? How do they appeal to Lebanese nationalism, sectarianism and xenophobia? This will help us ask: What are some of the dominant stories told by the Lebanese about Lebanon? 

In week 2 (Jan 24),

we will get more academic-y. Don’t worry. It will just be that one time, and you don’t have to know anything in advance. That session has the very professional sounding title of “Five academic-y concepts that are easier to understand than they seem.” They are “Sectarianisation, Bordering, Wartime, the Anticipation of Violence, Permanent Now.” 

In simple terms: Sectarianisation is the process through which sectarianism is created and recreated. Bordering is the process through which borders, physical or otherwise, are created and recreated. Wartime is the temporality whereby the past is ‘activated’ to frame the present. Anticipation of Violence is the sense that violence is always around the corner in times of ‘peace.’ All contribute to a sense that the present keeps on being extended, which is how we get the permanent now. 

I picked these as useful frameworks to understand how something as messy and contradictory as the Lebanese ruling class was able to keep a hegemonic hold over power for the quasi-entirety of our period of study, and how this makes them more vulnerable as well. We will look at examples of how the Lebanese system reproduces itself, and reflect on how the permanent now became a core problem affecting Lebanese civil society and beyond, a problem which remains with us today.

In week 3 (Jan 31),

“We are the children of the children of war,” which you may recognise as the title of a recent episode I recovered with my friend, the Lebanese journalist Justin Salhani, we will explore the postwar that never was, and the postmemory generation that inherited its traumas. Also, hauntings, because of course I will talk to you about ghosts, not the friendly Casper types, but more so the political hauntings that come out of untackled pain and trauma. 

Here is the synopsis of that session: The Lebanese wars officially ended in 1990, but: 1- The Israeli occupation of Lebanon continued until 2000. The two decades in between included a full-blown war in 2006 and multiple escalations along the southern border, until the most devastating war so far would start again in 2024, with good reasons to believe it will continue into the future. And 2- The Assad regime’s occupation of the rest of the country continued until 2005, but it continued to kill prominent opposition figures alongside its ally Hezbollah, with the most recent victim being Lokman Slim in 2021. The Assad regime, which had ruled Syria since 1970, collapsed in 2024.

We will ask: did the wars ever end? If no, why? And why is it worth questioning the ‘postwar’ discourse? How does this relate to the international status quo vis-a-vis Israel, which continues to this day despite their genocide in Gaza? How did the Israeli (1982-2000) and Syrian (1990-2005) occupations of Lebanon, in addition to the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown of Syrians post-2011, influence Lebanon? Finally, how can a hauntological approach help us understand ‘postwar’ Lebanon?

In week 4 (Feb 7),

entitled “From Life in the Midst of History to The Collapse.” How we went from the hopes of the 2019 uprising to the horrors of 2020.

We will go through two major protests that happened in the past decade: ‘You Stink’ in 2015 and the biggest one to date in 2019. I was an organiser in 2015 and a participant in 2019. We will ask: What were these protests about, and how did they differ from one another? We will also look at the aftermath of the 2019 uprising, with a focus on what is referred to in Lebanon as the collapse: the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic crisis and the port of Beirut explosion – all of which occured/started within months of one another in 2020. We will ask: How did we go from hope to despair in such a short time span?

Finally, in week 5 (Feb 14),

“Lebanon yesterday, today, tomorrow,” we will have open-ended final session in which we go through the past month. Depending on the interests of the class, we can also talk about current events, and where Lebanon might be heading next. 

Fees & Discounts

I will send you the syllabus as well as all the required details including how to pay for the class. I’ve thought a lot on how to price the class, and I ended up sticking to $300, which I know may well be too high for many people. If you can’t afford it, get in touch anyway please. The hope is that enough people who are able to afford it pay to cover the the costs, in which case I would be able to open up more spaces at lower rates, and a few for free too. Eventually (hopefully/inshallah) I’d love to be able to give free classes because I genuinely enjoy doing these, but for we-still-live-under-capitalism reasons I cannot afford to do so yet. 

So this class costs $300, unless you get a discount. 

Discounts

• For previous participants
  • 30% if you’ve taken another class with me before
  • 50% if you are retaking the same class
• For Hauntologies (my newsletter) subscribers (past or present)
  • 50% off for paid subscribers
  • 100% off for Founding Members

Anyone joining the class will get:

• Access to all 5 sessions of course
• Lifetime access to the Google Drive with links and resources, continuously updated. These will include texts with my commentary, my dissertation, audio files and video files.
• Lifetime access to the Hauntologies newsletter without paying extra, if you want (subscribers pay $50 a year on average)
• Discounts on future classes
• An invitation to join a Signal group, if you want

More classes to come

As I said, there will be more classes to come as well. In addition to repeating this class, here are the titles and brief descriptions of the other classes currently being prepared. You can already register your interest by email or Signal to those as well – and I’ll just send you an email or text when they’re ready.

I will be doing more detailed announcements in the coming months, but for now here’s what I can tell you:

• The Ghosts of Israel’s Future, looking at what the horrors unleashed by Israel during the ongoing genocide reveal about that country’s politics, and the people, Jews, Israelis and Palestinians alike, who predicted it. At the title suggests, we will explore some of the ‘ghosts’ that Israeli society is likely going to have to deal with, and why that’s relevant for us all. Estimated fee is $300 for 5 sessions. Minimum participants: 5. 
• Against Multipolar Imperialism, looking at why we cannot accept multipolarity as a valid alternative to a US-dominated world, especially as that involves accepting authoritarian states and effectively sacrificing whole populations as collateral. We will look at China, Taiwan, Ukraine, Russia, so-called Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong, Syria, Israel-Palestine, Iran, El Salvador, Argentina, Tigray and Ethiopia, Bosnia and of course Lebanon, among others. Estimated fee is $300 for 5 sessions. Minimum participants: 5.
• Cancelling the Apocalypse: From James Baldwin to Solarpunk and beyond, looking at the concept of radical optimism through James Baldwin, whose book The Fire Next Time influenced this podcast, and tracing it all the way to Solarpunk and positive stories as responses to the present tech-fueled dystopian hell that has been imposed on us all. Estimated fee is $300 for 5 sessions. Minimum participants: 5.
• Postwar Hauntings: Modern Lebanon Through Its Cinema. This will be a much more in-depth exploration of Lebanon post-1990 through its cinema, which was the topic of my PhD dissertation. We will watch movies, discuss them, and explore Lebanon through them. Estimated fee is $600 for 6 sessions. Minimum participants: 5.