Diana Kasem

Diana Kasem is a Ph.D candidate and a graduate instructor in Communication at UMass Amherst, where she has taught courses such as Introduction to Film Studies, Program Process in TV Production, and First Year Seminar. She received a master's degree in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University, and is a recipient of Jusoor Scholarship. She earned her M.A. in Art History from the Belarusian State Academy of Arts and two bachelor degrees in English Literature and Theater Studies in Syria, where she lectured at the Higher Institute of Theater in Damascus. She is also a published author, whose story for children, The Apple Girl, received an award from the Syrian Ministry of Culture in 2009. As an experimental filmmaker, she has written and directed multiple projects shown at international film festivals, such as Everyday Arias (UK, 2017), Tiba Short Film Festival (Egypt, 2013), and Al-Ard Doc Film Festival (Italy, 2013). In 2015, she founded 7GATES, a platform for supporting art and culture.

Recent peer reviewed articles:

Kasem, D. (2021). Arab SF Film and TV in the Twentieth Century. MOSF Journal of Science Fiction, 4(2), 50–64.

Kasem, D. (2022). Resilient communication using art in applied contexts. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 50(sup1), S72–S78.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2022.2079928

Recent Conference participations:

The Sea is All Around, New England Graduate Media Symposium. Boston, Massachusetts, USA, (presenter 2017, selection committee member 2018-2019).

Resilient Communication, 2021, in: Comm Diversity: Communication for Collective Healing, Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas, and Northeast Popular Culture Association, October 2021

A film trailer: Normal Yesterday

National Communication Association, Baltimore, 2019.

Film, media, culture, and theater studies.