Zoya Masoud
Short Bio
- Since 2024 Research associate (Post-Doc) at “BEYONDREST” ERC-Project at the Forum Transregionale Studien (Forum).
- 2019 – 2024 Research Associate at DFG Research Training Group 2227 “Identity and Heritage”, TU Berlin, DFG Research Training Group “Identity and Heritage.”
- 2017 – 2019 Research Associate at Department of Building Archaeology, German Archaeological Institute. Project: Aleppo Bazaar/3D-Modell (Part of the Project “Stunde null.”
- 2017- 2018 Coordinator of the Project “Aleppo Heritage Catalogue. Museum for Islamic Art in Berlin.”
- 2015 − 2017 Research Associate at “Syrian Heritage Archive” at the Museum for Islamic Art.
- 2016 Research Associate at “Aleppo Archive in Exile” Project at Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg.
- 2012 – 2015 Master of Science at HafenCity University Hamburg. Resource Efficiency in Architecture and Planning (REAP).
- 2014 Field Research at Ardhi University, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
- 2012 Lecturer at the chair of Institute for Urban and Environmental Planning – Faculty for Architecture – Damascus University.
- 2010 – 2012 Site Architect in Restoration Projects in the old city of Damascus of Agha Khan Trust for Culture, Damascus, Syria.
- 2004 –2010 Graduation from Architecture and Urban Planning Faculty, Damascus University.
Contact
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4283-7891
Technische Universität Berlin
DFG-Graduiertenkolleg 2227 „Identität und Erbe“
D-10623 Berlin
Dislocated. Heritage Construction through Experience of Loss in Aleppo
Centered on individuals from Aleppo, this project explores how the experience of loss influences sense of belonging and self-identifications with destroyed urban heritage. During the war (2012–2016), Aleppines were in a perpetual state of exception. The intrastate conflict turned the UNESCO World Heritage Site into a ghost city, where buildings were detached from their ascribed historical and architectural meanings. The attacks, sieges, and bombardments by various warring parties affected drastically living conditions of the Aleppine population. The experience of loss was part of the daily “routine” for the people of Aleppo: The city’s civilian population recorded high casualty figures, while living conditions deteriorated as residents were caught up in the daily struggle to survive the war.
Unsing qualitative research methods, I analyzed my empirical data through a dislocatory lens. Destruction represents an anomaly, an irritation, interruption, or an unpredictable event, which Aleppine individuals experienced and had to deal with, while the state of the “living-dead” (Mbembe) was imposed on them. Though being dislocated from the center of interests, individuals from Aleppo carried in them inherent dislocatory force against dominant discourses, which negated them in the first place and pushed them out of location. The high probability of random death contrasted the notion of the old city as an everlasting object. In their attempts to localize their loss, they adopted differentiated positions in dealing with their delocalized and de-temporalized hopes in relation to what they considered an eternal object of history.
Monography (Forthcoming)
Masoud, Z., Dislocated. Heritage Construction through Experience of Loss in Aleppo, in De Gruyter, Berlin, expected 2026.
Publications
Masoud, Z., 2025: Inheriting a Dislocatory Moment, in Recalibrating Syria: New Openings for Anthropological Engagement, eds. Andreas Bandak, Paul Anderson, Amani Anderson, in AllegraLab. URL: https://allegralaboratory.net/inheriting-a-dislocatory-moment/.
Masoud, Z., 2025: Shades of Locality in the Old Neighborhoods of Aleppo: Some field notes on the meaning of ‘Place of origin’ asl, in: Reconstructing neighbourhoods of war, ed. Birgit Schäbler. Publications of Orient Institut Beirut der deutschen Auslandsinstitute der bundesunmittelbaren Max Weber Stiftung, Beirut, pp. 99–120.
Masoud, Z., 2025: Verlust lokalisieren: Auf der Suche nach einem unvergänglichen Objekt in Aleppo, in: Geographica Helvetica, Special Issue: Geographien des Verlusts, 80, pp. 57–65. URL: https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-80-57-2025.
Masoud, Z., 2024: Von Detonationen zu Erschütterungen: Die Altstadt Aleppos zwischen Krieg und Erdbeben, in: Erschütterung. Erde und Erbe in der Krise. Veröffentlichungen des Arbeitskreises Theorie und Lehre der Denkmalpflege e.V., 33, eds. Svenja Hönig und Marko Špikić, Holzminden, pp. 120–129.
Masoud, Z., 2024: Das Denkmalschutz-Kollektiv von Ost Aleppo – Handeln in »Todeswelten«, in: Dinge, die verbinden: Objekte und Erbekonstruktionen. Schriftenreihe des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs »Identität und Erbe«, V, eds. Ayşegül Dinççağ Kahveci, Mariam Gegidze, Pablo Santacana López and Janna Vogl. Weimar, pp. 36–47.
Masoud, Z., 2022: Der Verlust eines unsichtbaren Monuments: Von mentalen Repräsentationen der al-Khusrawiyya Moschee in der Altstadt Aleppos. In: Instabile Konstruktionen, Interdisziplinäre Forschung zu „Identität und Erbe“. Schriftenreihe des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs »Identität und Erbe«, II, hrsg. von Simone Bogner, Gabi Dolff-Bonekämper, Hans-Rudolf Mayer and Mark Escherich, Weimar, pp. 122–137.
Masoud, Z., 2021: Verlust erleben: Identifikation(en) mit Räumen des Kulturerbes in der Kriegs- und Nachkriegszeit. In: Die Altstadt von Aleppo Gestern und Heute, Aleppo Journal 2022, ed. Mamoun Fansa, Berlin, pp. 63–65.
Editorial Board
Aleppo Heritage Catalogue. Museum for Islamic Art in Berlin– Bilingual Online-Publication (co-edited with Dima Dayoub & Hiba Bizreh), (eds.). Digital Publications of Gerda Henkel Foundation, 2024. URL: https://edit.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/aleppo-heritage-catalogue/english/.
Public Engagement – Blog entries
A treasure of heritage for the poor of Aleppo: Neighborhoods between the Hammer of Political Insecurity and the Anvil of Warlords. In: TRAFO series “Reconstructing Neighborhoods of War”, Open Access on TRAFO, a blog for Transregional Research, 2019. URL: https://trafo.hypotheses.org/20135.
Junge Experten für den Schutz und Erhalt des Menschheitserbes in Syrien (mit Saskia Baderschneider). Guest Contribution in Jahresbericht der Deutschen UNESCO-Kommission, 2017. URL: https://www.unesco.de/sites/default/files/2018-01/Jahrbuch_2016-2017.pdf.
Die Ausstellung des Museums für Islamische Kunst und der Aspekt des Kunst- und Kulturtransfers. In: Multaka Project, Museum für Islamische Kunst im Pergamonmuseum, Berlin, 2016.
Selected Organized Sessions and Workshops
Panel discussion: “Dislocation and Temporalities, ” part of the KuK Tuesday Series at the chair of Modern Art History (Prof. Bénédicte Savoy), at the TU Berlin, Berlin 10.12.2024.
Symposium: Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Cultural Erasure at World Archaeological Congress (co-organized with Prof. Brian Daniels, University of Pennsylvania, Department of Anthropology), Prague 2022.
Workshops for Syrian, Lebanese, and German Students as part of the project “Digital Monument Preservation in 3D. The virtual bazaar of Aleppo (Suq al-Madina) as a discussion tool for the preservation of historical monuments,” Beirut 2019.
Workshop with Carlton University students, Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin 2018.
Workshops with UNESCO German Commission for Young Experts Forum (Unite for Syrian Heritage), Berlin 2016–2017.
Selected Presentations
“Digitization of Cultural Heritage: Between Preservation and Decolonization,” part of the 2025 MENA Digital Summer School, organized in collaboration with the Einstein Center and the Candid Foundation GmbH, Berlin, June 17th, 2025.
“Dislocation and Heritage: On Radical Hope and Experiences of Loss in Aleppo/Syria,” within the lecture’s series of the EUME Berliner Seminar, at Forum Transregionale Studien e.V., Berlin, June 4th, 2025.
“Host(ag)ed by the Institution: Europe-based Archives of Rebuilding Syria after the Fall of Assad Regime”, at “Voices, Communities, and Digital Archives: Producing Knowledge in and of the Diasporic Present” Workshop, at Forum Transregionale Studien e.V., Berlin, January 27th, 2025.
“Heritage under Fire: The European Discourses of Heritage Preservation in the Middle East between WWI and Now” with Sebastian Willert, at SFB 1070 project: RessourcenKulturen at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, October 24th, 2024.
“(Il-)legal Property: In the Shadows of Ownership Claims around Ishtar Gate” at “Beyond Property: Cultural Heritage, Ownership, and the Making of Knowledge” workshop, at Institut Français d’Etudes Anatoliennes, Istanbul, October 2024.
“Losing What Was Never Owned: Of Material Loss and Mental Reconstructions of Destroyed Aleppine Monuments in the Syrian War (2012–2016)” at the 36th congress of the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA), Lyon France, June 2024.
“Verlust lokalisieren: Auf der Suche nach einem unvergänglichen Objekt in Aleppo” at Deutscher Kongress für Geographie, Frankfurt am Main, September 2023.
“Von Detonationen zu Erschütterungen: Die Altstadt Aleppos zwischen Krieg und Erdbeben“ at Annual Conference of the Working Group on Theory and Education in Heritage Conservation e.V. (AKTLD), Zagreb, September 2023.
“Destroyed (in) Aleppo: Conflicts and Crises within Urban Syrian Heritage” at Congress of the Austrian Society for Sociology “Kritische Zeiten” within the Ad-Hoc Group “’Erbe’ in Zeiten multipler Krisen,” Vienna, July 2023.
“A Vivid Victory over a Ghost City: Discourses of Heritage and Memory Preservation in the Shade of the Syrian War” at International Conference “Contested World Orders. The Global Heritage Discourses and Practice in Times of Crises and Conflict”, Bamberg, December 2022.
“Ein Kollektiv für ein Subjektiv(-iert)es Objekt: Das aleppinische Denkmalpflege-Kollektiv während des syrischen Krieges” at “Dinge, die verbinden: Objekte und Erbekonstruktionen” at the Graduate Research Training Group’s Conference “Identity and Heritage, ” Berlin, November 2022.
“The destruction of invisible monuments in the old City of Aleppo, Syria” within the Symposium: “Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Cultural Erasure” at the World Archaeological Congress, Prague, July 2022.
“The Suqs of Aleppo” within the framework of the “Webinar series: Cities of the Islamic World: Syria” at Agha Khan Museum, Toronto, November 2021.
“Syrien – Geschichte und aktuelle Lage” at Symposium on Syria of the Red Cross Services (DRK) Saxony e.V., Dresden, May 2021.
“Experiences and insights from Syrian universities: a field report” within DAAD Workshop of: “Higher education in Syria after a decade of war,” 15 April 2021.
“Snapshots of Memorycide and Moments of Self-Identification with Invisible Monuments in the Old City of Aleppo” at the Graduate Research Training Group’s Conference “Identity and Heritage”: Instabile Konstruktionen, Berlin, November 2019.
“Damage Assessments in the old city of Aleppo: Initiatives, cooperations, and Methods” in the international conference “Narrating a New World, Maps, Myths and Legens in Early Postwar Europe,” at Center for Historical Research in Berlin of the Polish Academy of Sciences, October 2019.
“Bearing to witness the Old City of Aleppo’s destruction: between misfortune and organised crime” at AGYA Konferenz: “Destruction/(Re)Construction: Interdisciplinary perspectives on cultural heritage in conflict,” Beirut, September 2019.
“Rebuilding the Old City of Aleppo in a Coherent Way: Alqaba neighbourhood” at “Reconstructing neighbourhoods of war,” International Conference at Orient Institute Beirut, Beirut, December 2018.
“Pilot on institutional heritage: Participative projects at the Berliner Museum of Islamic Art” at “REACH conference: RE-designing Access to Cultural Heritage for a wider participation in preservation, (re-) use and management of European culture,” Budapest, May 2018.
“Rebuilding the Suqs of Aleppo” at CHNT: Conference on cultural heritage and new technologies, Vienna, November 2017.
“Archives as a Basis for Post-War Masterplan?” at: Imagine a Middle East symposium at ICI (Institute for Cultural Inquiry), Berlin, July 2017.
“Decentralized networks of water supply in urban Tanzania, case study: Dar es Salaam” at TRIALOG Annual Conference, Hamburg, November 2015.