Jared McCormick

Born in 1981 in Phoenix, AZ/USA.

Jared McCormick is the Director of Graduate Studies & Faculty Fellow at the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. He completed his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology, and a secondary degree in Critical Media Practices, at Harvard University (2016). He was recently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. Jared is also the co-director/founder of marra.tein, an initiative that encourages innovative thought and dialogue by hosting researchers/artists at a dedicated residency space in Beirut, Lebanon. 

He is working on a book manuscript of his dissertation which joins a historical analysis of eras of the tourism/leisure industry in Lebanon with an ethnography of queer mobility since 2004. Central in this work are the role of imagination, sensuality, and »atmospheres.« He has also been carrying out a parallel project on the history of tourism in the Arabian Gulf (Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, and Bahrain) which centers on the productions of visual cultures of tourism since the 1960’s and current iterations of »tourism« as branding, diversification, and speculation in the GCC.

Jared has received grants and fellowships from a range of agencies and institutions, including the ZEIT – Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius (Germany) and Wenner-Gren Foundation (USA) for Anthropological fieldwork. For digital projects, he has received production funding from the Mellon Foundation Grant: Critical Media Practice (Harvard University, MA/USA) and History Design Studio, Hutchins Center (Harvard University, MA/USA).

Jared McCormick resides in New York City/USA.