[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ next_background_color=”#ffffff” _builder_version=”4.19.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_image=”https:\/\/cyprusconferences.org\/scos2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Nicosia-Faneromeni-Square-scaled.jpg” custom_margin=”0px||||false|false” custom_padding=”30px||30px||true|false” bottom_divider_style=”wave2″ da_disable_devices=”off|off|off” global_colors_info=”{}” da_is_popup=”off” da_exit_intent=”off” da_has_close=”on” da_alt_close=”off” da_dark_close=”off” da_not_modal=”on” da_is_singular=”off” da_with_loader=”off” da_has_shadow=”on”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” header_font_size=”52px” custom_margin=”1px||49px|||” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.19.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”||6px|||” da_disable_devices=”off|off|off” global_colors_info=”{}” da_is_popup=”off” da_exit_intent=”off” da_has_close=”on” da_alt_close=”off” da_dark_close=”off” da_not_modal=”on” da_is_singular=”off” da_with_loader=”off” da_has_shadow=”on”][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_5,3_5″ _builder_version=”4.26.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.19.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cyprusconferences.org\/scos2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Lisa-1.png” title_text=”Lisa (1)” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.26.1″ _module_preset=”default” width=”65%” border_radii=”on|10px|10px|10px|10px” border_width_all=”2px” border_color_all=”#a4a574″ global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.19.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.26.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Lisa Suhair Majaj, a Palestinian-American living in Cyprus, is an internationally-published poet, writer, scholar, editor and children\u2019s author. Her writing has appeared across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and India. She holds a BA from the American University of Beirut, and an MA in English Literature, an MA in American Culture, and a PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Her creative work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, and her 2009 collection Geographies of Light won the Del Sol Press Poetry Prize. She has read poetry and lectured at universities and other venues across the US and in the UK, Cyprus, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Bahrain, Sharjah, Egypt, Germany, Tunisia, Spain and India. Her poetry was displayed in the exhibition Aftermath: The Fallout of War\u2014America and the Middle East (Harn Museum of Art, 2016) and was used in the limited edition art book Passport of Witness. Her scholarly work includes articles on Arab American literature and culture as well as the co-edited volumes Intersections: Gender, Nation and Community in Arab Women’s Novels (Syracuse University Press), Etel Adnan: Critical Essays on the Arab-American Writer and Artist (McFarland Publishing), Going Global: The Transnational Reception of Third World Women Writers (Garland\/Routledge) and the forthcoming The\u00a0Companion to\u00a0Contemporary\u00a0Arab American Literature\u00a0<\/em>(Routledge). Her most recent creative publications can be found\u00a0in\u00a0Black Warrior Review<\/u>,\u00a0Massachusetts Review<\/u>,\u00a0Literatura Scripta. Escrita de autoria feminine contemporanea, Writers Resist<\/u>,\u00a0Poets Respond,Vox Populi,<\/u>\u00a0Writing in a Women\u2019s Voice<\/u>, and\u00a0Adi Magazine. <\/u>She may be reached at lisamajaj@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.26.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.26.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_divider color=”#005141″ _builder_version=”4.26.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_5,3_5″ _builder_version=”4.26.1″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”||6px|||” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.19.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cyprusconferences.org\/scos2025\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/New-Project-9.png” title_text=”New Project (9)” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.26.1″ _module_preset=”default” width=”65%” border_radii=”on|10px|10px|10px|10px” border_width_all=”2px” border_color_all=”#a4a574″ global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.19.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.26.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Dr Magdalena Zira is a theatre director, classics scholar and playwright, based in Cyprus. She has written plays, the scripts for short films and has adapted and directed several contemporary re-workings of canonical texts, including Roman epic, Renaissance texts and Greek drama. Her theatre work with company\u00a0Fantastico Theatro<\/strong><\/a><\/span>\u00a0explores site-specific staging in the urban landscape. She is co-founder of\u00a0Project Season Women<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, a feminist theatre collective which gives a platform to the voices of women theatre makers through interdisciplinary collaborations. Her areas of research and interest include classical reception, new writing for theatre, feminist theatre and site-specific performance. In 2019 she was awarded the artist of the year award by the Cyprus Theatre Organization and in 2020 she directed an all-day reading of Natalie Haynes\u2019\u00a0A Thousand Ships\u00a0<\/em>at the British Museum as a promenade performance. In 2022, the play she co-authored and directed,\u00a0Women Walk Home<\/em>, a verbatim docu-drama that sheds new light on historical events in 1980s Cyprus, won the Union of Cypriots award and was selected to participate in the prestigious Athens and Epidaurus festival in 2023. In the summer of 2024, she directed Euripides\u2019 Phoenician Women<\/em> for the Cyprus Theatre Organization. Read More<\/a><\/span>\n In 2023, as a Visiting Fellow at Durham University, she worked on a joint Research and Performance Project about Dido, the legendary queen of Carthage, in collaboration with Professor Edith Hall from the Department of Classics & Ancient History. Using evidence from ancient historiographers who preserve indigenous Carthaginian traditions containing an alternative history of Dido, the project engaged with Classical Reception in order to expose the long evolution of the abuse of the Carthaginian queen in European colonial and racist thinking. It also engaged with themes of urgency today, including (im)migration, the European colonial construction of Africa, and the instrumentalization of gender and sexuality in Orientalizing and imperial propaganda. The project resulted in a staged reading of a new play about Dido, both at Durham in 2023and then, translated in Greek and the Cypriot dialect, in Cyprus in early 2025.<\/p>\n She currently teaches at the Open University of Cyprus in the Theatre Studies Masters\u2019 Programme.<\/p>\n“Writing into the Maelstrom”<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Magdalena Zira<\/strong><\/h3>\n
“Nicosia as a Stage: Crossing Boundaries Around Us and Within Us, Through Theatre”<\/strong><\/h3>\n