Email: telhaik@ucdavis.edu
EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY: 2000-2007 PhD Cultural Anthropology
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY: 1992-1996 B.S. Biological Sciences
PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS AND RANKS HELD
University of California, Davis
Associate Professor of Anthropology (Step 4.5) 2015-present
San Francisco State University
Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies 2010-2015
Rice University
Assistant Professor of Anthropology 2008-2010
Rice University
Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology 2006-2008
HONORS AND AWARDS
Canadian Institute For Advanced Research (CIFAR). Research Program: “Futures Flourishing”. Co-director, 2023-2028
UC Davis Humanities Institute. Research Cluster “Venues in Aesthetics and Media” (co-PI),
2022-2023.
Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles Film Forum Collaborative Fellowship. 2014-2017
Title of collective project: “Experimental Cinema & Arts in Latin America.” Title
of individual project: “Raul Ruiz: Anthropology’s Trembling Images”
Al Falah Fellowship. Center for Middle Eastern Studies. UC Berkeley. 2000-2003
Title of project: “Cinema & New Media Arts in the MENA”
LABORATORY
AIL: Anthropology Image Lab / UC Davis (Founder & director, 2015 - present)
AFFILIATIONS
• Museo delle Culture (MUDEC, Milan), Scientific Board member.
• Critical Theory Program, UC Davis. 2018 - Present
• Performance Studies Graduate Program. University of California, Davis. 2016-present
• Culture Studies Graduate Program. University of California, Davis. 2015-present
• ARC: Anthropological Research on the Contemporary. University of California,
Berkeley. 2013- 2016.
• Center for Middle Eastern Studies. University of California, Berkeley. 2000-2003.
• Department of Hispanic Studies. Rice University. 2007-2009.
TEACHING (selection)
ANT 210: Aesthetic Anthropology; ANT 210: Anthropology of the Image; ANT 135:
Media Anthropology; ANT 135: Marine Media Practices; ANT 123an: Political
Iconology; ANT 201: Pro-Seminar in Reading Ethnography; ANT 136: Ethnographic
Cinema; ANT 299: Supervised Doctoral Research
SCHOLARSHIP AND RESEARCH
Books:
• Elhaik, Tarek. 2022. Aesthetics and Anthropology: Cogitations, New York: Routledge.
• Elhaik, Tarek. 2016. The Incurable-Image: Curating Post-Mexican Film and Media Arts.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University.
Editorial Work:
• Tarek Elhaik & Sergio Javier Andrade (editors). Dossier: “The Anthropology of the
Image”, Antipoda: Revista de Antropologia y Arqueologia (Universidad de los Andes,
Bogota), 2018. Link
Journal Articles & Essays:
• Tarek Elhaik. “Strait of Gibraltar: A Reverie in Blue” in Cura Magazine, Fall 2020, p.
76-83
• Tarek Elhaik. "Anthropological Film Fragments from Early Twentieth-Century Mexico:
A Curatorial Problem." Visual and New Media Review, Field sights, Cultural
Anthropology, November 15, 2019, online publication.
• Tarek Elhaik. “Cogitations” in Journal of Cultural Anthropology, Dossier on “Images,”
March 2018, online publication.
• Tarek Elhaik. “What is Contemporary Anthropology?” in Critical Arts: Journal of Media
& Culture Studies vol. 27.6. London: Routledge (2014): 784-798.
• Tarek Elhaik & George Marcus. “Diseño curatorial en la poética y política de la
etnografía hoy/Curatorial Designs in the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography” in Íconos:
Revista de Ciencias Sociales vol. 42 (January 2012): 89-104.
• Tarek Elhaik. “Mutual Intrusions: Metalogue with Roger Bartra” in Revista de
Antropología Social vol. 18 (Fall 2008): 45-64.
• Tarek Elhaik. “Anthropology & Images” in La Critica Sociologica vol. 166 (Summer
2008): 49- 61.
• Tarek Elhaik. “Solitude & Fragments: Introducing the Videowork of Mounir Fatmi” in
Framework: The Journal of Cinema & Media. Wayne State University Press, vol. 43.2
(Fall 2002).
Book Chapters:
• Tarek Elhaik. “Averroes At Mexico City’s Kiosko Morisco” in Fieldwork on Philosophy:
Case Studies in Anthropological Analysis. Eds. Bubandt, N. and Schwartz Wentzer, T.
(Routledge, 2022), p. 302-319
• Tarek Elhaik & Rasha Salti. “Un Cinema Sans Racines”, Le Cinema de Mostapha
Derkaoui, Ed. Lea Morin, Beirut: Zaman Books, Presses du Reel, 2022, p. 171-182
• Tarek Elhaik & George Marcus. “Curatorial Designs: Act II” in The Anthropologist As
Curator, Ed. Roger Sansi, (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), p. 17-34
• Tarek Elhaik. “Raul Ruiz: Anthropology’s Trembling Images” in Ism, Ism, Ism:
Experimental Cinema in Latin America, eds. Jesse Lerner and Luciano Piazza, (Berkeley:
UC Press, 2017), p. 176-196.
• Tarek Elhaik. “Reanimation and Repetition: On Silvia Gruner’s Tests” In Hemispheres:
A Labyrinth Sketchbook by Silvia Gruner. Eds. Gabriela Rangel and Tatiana Cuevas,
Americas Society Contemporary Art Gallery, New York, United States & Amparo
Museum, Puebla, Mexico. October 2016.
• Tarek Elhaik. “The Incurable Image: Curation & Repetition on a Tricontinental Scene” in
The Post-Colonial Museum: The Arts of Memory & The Pressures of History. Iain
Chambers, Alessandra De Angelis, Celeste Ianniciello, Mariangela Orabona & Michaela
Quadraro eds. London: Ashgate (2014): 180-194.
• Tarek Elhaik. "A Bloc of Sensation In Lieu of Geography" in Sweet Sixties: Specters and
Spirits of a Parallel Avant-garde. Georg Schöllhammer & Ruben Arevshatyan eds.
Sternberg Press (2014): 217-228.
• Tarek Elhaik & Dominic Willsdon. "Tricontinental Drifts" in Six Lines of Flight: Shifting
Geographies in Contemporary Art. Apsara DiQuinzio ed. Berkeley: University of
California Press (2012): 193-199.
• Tarek Elhaik. "Borderline Ghosts: From Touch of Evil to Maquilapolis" in Tijuana
Dreaming: Art & Life At the Global Border. Josh Kun & Fiamma Montezemolo. Eds.
Durham: Duke University Press (2012): 339-354.
EDITOR REVIEWED WORKS
Book Reviews:
• Francois Cusset. French Theory: How Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault & Co Transformed the
Intellectual Life of the United States. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (2008).
Review in H-France: Online Journal of French History & Culture vol. 10.225 (2011): 962-965.
Link
Encyclopedic Entry:
• “Women’s Experimental Cinema in the Middle East & North Africa” in Brill Encyclopedia of
Women & Islamic Cultures. Suad Joseph ed. (2010).
Art & Film Exhibition Reviews:
• “Jesse Lerner”, City of Los Angeles Municipal Gallery. Exhibition review (2010). Link
• “Mounir Fatmi: Survival Signs” in Aspect: The New Chronicle of New Media Art vol. 14:
Middle East. DVD publication (2009). Link
• “Chris Marker’s Remembrance of Things To Come: Enthusiasm & Melancholy in the
Ethnographic Archive” in B-Motion. Viviana Gravano ed. Milan: Costa & Nolan (2008):
45-55.
• “Maquilapolis: Tijuana, Cities of Factories” (directed by Vicky Funari and Sergio de la
Torre, 2006, 67 mins)” in The Architect’s Newspaper no. 15 (2007): 19.
• “Route 181: Fragments of A Journey to Palestine-Israel (Michel Khleifi y Eyal Sivan,
2003, 240 mins)” in the program notes for 47th San Francisco International Film Festival,
(2004). Link
PEER-REVIEWED PRESENTATIONS
• November 2019. Panel: “Anthropology of and through the Image.” (Presenter / Paper
title: “The Art of Cogitation”), American Anthropology Association.
• December 2017. Panel: “Levi-Strauss’ Tristes Tropiques & the Politics of Anti-
Ethnography” (Discussant), American Anthropology Association.
• October 2015. Panel: Roundtable “Anthropology & Contemporary Art” (Discussant).
Asociación Latinoamericana de Antropologia, ALA (Mexico City)
• July 2012. Panel: “Anxious Visions & Uncertain Images.” Paper: “Curatorial Work:
Working through Affective Passages.” European Association of Social Anthropology
(University of Nanterre, Paris, France). Link
• November. 2010. Participant to the “Ethnographic Terminalia” roundtable (American
Anthropological Association, New Orleans). Link
• August 2010. Paper: “Borderline Collaborations: Indigenous Media & Contemporary Art
in Pablo Helguera’s sound installation ‘Conservatorio de Lenguas Muertas’” at the
Visible Evidence Conference (School of Cinematic Arts, University Of Southern
California).
• March 2010. Paper: “Neuro/Ethnos: The Futures of Neurocinematic Theory in the Age of
Transculturalism” at Society for Cinema & Media Studies, Cinema & Art history Interest
Group (Los Angeles).
• April 2009. Paper: “Montage Against Mexican Nationalist Anthropology: Rubén Gámez’
La Fórmula Secreta (1965).” Association of Art Historians (Manchester Metropolitan
University, Manchester, U.K.).
INVITED PRESENTATIONS
• February 2020. “Musicality in Patricia Lagarde’s Cyanotypes,” Symposium Trans-Medial
Latin America, University of Southern California.
• June 2019. “Averroes Con Deleuze En Tiempos de Oscuridad” VI Seminario Critico-
Politico Transnacional, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
• “Future Remake” (With Kriss Ravetto), Art As Critique conference, Arts Research
Center, UC Berkeley, March 1, 2019 UC Berkeley
• October 2018. “States of Cogitation,” Form, Thought, Media Lecture Series, University
of Southern California.
• September 2018. “Geo-philosophical Pilgrimages: A Curatorial Problem” at the
International Colloquium Deleuze and the Philosophy of Difference and 50th Anniversary
of the publication of Difference and Repetition (1968-2018). Universidad del Rosario,
Bogota. (Paper)
• May 2018. “Alongside the Tricontinental: Mathias Goeritz’s Mexico City” at the
Hemispheric Institute for the Americas, UC Davis. (paper)
• January 2017. “Trabajo de Campo: Una Critica de la Antropologia Contemporanea /
Fieldwork: A Critique of Contemporary Anthropology” at the Instituto 17 De Estudios
Criticos in Mexico City. (paper)
• October 2017. “On Intrusion” at the Learning from Documenta symposium, Department
of Anthropology (University of Athens) & Athens School of Fine Arts (Greece). (paper)
• March 2017. “Déjà vu” at Hallucinema: A Conference at the Intersection of
Hallucination and Media, New School for Social Research, New York. Link (paper)
• February 2017. Public Conversation with Manuel De Landa, Laboratorio Arte Alameda,
Mexico City.
• January 2016. Participant to the roundtable on “Contemporary Curation” at the GNAM,
National Art Gallery of Rome. Link
• August 2016. Speaker at the symposium “Imagen Vigilada / Surveilled Image,”
Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City.
• April 2016. “Red Deserts” at COMMA (Center of Modern Literature, Materialism, and
Aesthetics) – UC Santa Barbara. Link
• May 2015. “The Videos of Mounir Fatmi”, Humanities Research Institute and the Center
for Emerging Worlds, UC Santa Cruz.
• October 2014. Lecture-performance around Manuel De Landa’s experimental films.
Title: “Raw Nerves: A Lacanian Thriller.” Graduate Lecture Series (California College of
the Arts, San Francisco). Link
• April 2014. Participant at the workshop “Publication Mismatches: Is There a Common
Currency for Academic Credit” sponsored by Innovating Communication in Scholarship
and the Center for Science & Innovation Studies (University of California, Davis).
• April 2014. Participant in the “Transnational Cultural Flow” workshop (Film & Moving-
Image Studies Department, Concordia University, Montreal). Link
• March 2014. Paper: “Curation & Repetition. Art of Appropriation Symposium
(Department of Technocultural Studies, University of California, Davis).
• February 2014. Speaker at the Berlinale “Forum Expanded” Symposium. Paper: “Post-
Mexican Assemblages” (Berlin International Film Festival). Link
• November 2013. Paper: “The Incurable-Image.” Cinematic Migration lecture series
curated by Renée Green (Department of Art, Technology, & Culture, MIT). Link
• September 2013. Guest speaker at the Bordocs Documentary Symposium (Tijuana,
Mexico).
• January 2013. Paper: “Rome: A Tri-continental Assemblage?” Parallel Modernities: A
Sweet Sixties Conference (Ashkal Alwan Center, Beirut, Lebanon).
• January 2013. Keynote Speech: “The Incurable Image: Curation & Repetition on a
Tricontinental Scene.” The Post-Colonial Museum Symposium (L’Orientale University,
Naples, Italy).
• November 2012. Roundtable participant: “Contemporary Experimental Cinema.” Cine
Futuro: 8th International Seminar of Cinema and Audiovisual Studies (Glauber Rocha
Center, Bahia, Brazil).
• January 2012. Participant to a roundtable around the work of Yervan Gianikian & Angela
Ricci- Luchi at the “Post-Colonial Italy?” Symposium (Museum of the 21st Century
[MAXXI], Rome. Italy). Link
• April 2009. Paper: “Roberto Rossellini: The Rice University Years.” Nature / Place /
Cinema Symposium (Colgate University, New York).
• November 2009. Paper: “Mestizaje & Sinophobia in De la Torre’s Installation ‘Nuevo
Dragon City’” at the Chao Center for Asian Studies (Rice University).
• April 2007. Keynote Speech titled “Anthropology & Images” at the Margaret Mead Film
Festival (Rice University). Link
CREATIVE WORK
Curatorial Practice:
• September 2020: ”Light in Dark Times,” 2-day Symposium co-curated for the Asian Art
Museum, San Francisco.
• September 2018 – March 2019: “The Arts of Critique” colloquium, a collaboration with
Professor Natalia Brizuela and the UC Berkeley Arts Research Center (UCHRI funds).
Link
• September 2017. “Raul Ruiz’s Trembling Images”, MOCA, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Los Angeles. (Project Funded by the Getty Foundation in collaboration with the Los
Angeles Film Forum). Link
• February 2017. “Manuel De Landa’s New Media Works”, Laboratorio Arte Alameda,
Mexico City. Link
• 2012. MEXICAN FUGUE. Conceived and organized a series of panel discussions and
roundtables in the context of SF MOMA’s exhibit Photography in Mexico (San Francisco
Museum Of Modern Art). Link
• 2011. SOY MEXICO. Program exploring Chris Marker’s eponymous imaginary filmessay
and Sergei Eisenstein’s unfinished ¡Que Viva México! through screenings of
experimental films and videos from contemporary Mexico (De Young Museum, San
Francisco, in collaboration with Mark Johnson [Art Gallery, SFSU] in the context of the
Celebration of the Centenial of the Mexican Revolution).
• 2009. SOY MEXICO (Cinémathèque de Tanger). Link
• 2008. Trinh T Minh-ha: Films, Videos and Installations. Event around the work of visual
artist, writer, scholar, and composer Trinh T. Minh-Ha (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston).
Link
• 2007. Remains of Mexico. Symposium and Program on Experimental Cinema from
Mexico (Rice University). Link
• 2005. On Paul Leduc & Roger Bartra’s Ethnocide (1976). Special screening at the
Festival de Cine de Morelia’s Bi-national Conference on Indigenous Media Arts
(Morelia, Mexico).
• 2004. Children of Herackles Project. Co-Curator with An Van Dienderen of a program on
Iranian, Afghani, Palestinian, and Turkish Cinemas as a companion project to Peter
Sellers’ adaptation of Euripides’ Children of Herackles. Commissioned by Gerard
Mortier (RUHR Trienale, Dusseldforf, Germany). Link
• 2000-2003. Monthly Film Series. Chief Curator, Center for Middle Eastern
Studies(University of California, Berkeley).
• 2000. Solitude & Fragments: The Video work of Mounir Fatmi. Video program curated
for the Society for Cinema & Media Studies.
• 2000. Women Directors in Islamic Societies. Film & Video program curated for the
Pacific Film Archive (University of California, Berkeley). Link
• 2000. Rehearsing Arab Identity. Curated film program sponsored by the Center for
Middle Eastern Studies in partnership with the Pacific Film Archive (University of
California, Berkeley). Link
• 1999. Re-framing Lebanon: Videos by Waleed Raad, Akram Zaatari, Mohamed Soueid.
Program of experimental videos from Lebanon, curated for the San Francisco
Cinematheque. Project Funded by the LEF foundation.
• 1998-2000. The Arab Film Festival. Curator of Media Arts. Festival funded by the San
Francisco Art Commission.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO CAMPUS & COMMUNITY
Departmental Level Committees & Assignments (Anthropology Department):
• Chair, Socio-Cultural Wing, 2021-present
• Graduate Advisor, 2021-present
• Chair, Graduate Admission Committee (2019-2020)
• Colloquium Committee (2018 - 2020)
• Graduate Program committee (2017-2018)
• Graduate Admissions committee (Fall 2015-2017)
Graduate Group Level Committees (Cultural Studies Graduate Group)
• Graduate Program Committee (Spring 2016-present)
• Graduate Admissions committee (Fall 2015-present) College Level Committees
& Assignments
• Senate Assembly Representative (2017-2019)
• Letters & Science Assembly Representative (Winter 2016 – 2017)
University Wide Level:
• UC Davis Humanities Institute (Board member), 2017-2019
• SHAPE / Science, Humanities and Arts: Process and Engagement Program, committee
member, (2020 - 2021)
• SHAPE (Sciences, Humanities and Arts: Process and Engagement) Faculty Steering
Committee (2019 - 2021)
San Francisco State University
Departmental Committees & Assignments (Cinema Department):
• Cluster Hire Open Rank Search in Violence & Media (Committee Chair, Fall 2014-
Spring
2015)
• Experimental Track Ad Hoc Committee (Fall 2013-Spring 2015)
• Governance Committee (Fall 2012- Spring 2015)
• MA Revision Sub-Committee (Fall 2012-2014)
• Media & Culture Advisor (Fall 2013- Spring 2015)
Campus Events:
• Faculty panel at the “Stretching the Screen” M.A. conference (Fall 2013, Cinema
Department).
• Opening remarks at the “Mind, Body, Cinema” M.A. conference (Fall 2011, Cinema
Department).
• Screening of curated program Soy Mexico: A Program of Experimental Films from
Mexico in collaboration with the SFSU Art Gallery (2011).
• Moderator for the “Hybrid Self: Cross Cultural Identity in the Modern World” and
“Identities in Film: Representations of Cultures and Identities” panels at the “Histories
Created Through Film” M.A. conference (Fall 2010, Cinema Department).
Other:
• Liaison with the Department of Education & Public Programs at the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) to co-teach one undergraduate course CINE 407: Art
&
Film with MOMA curator Dominic Willsdon (Fall 2012).
• Liaison with the Department of Education & Public Programs at the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) to co-teach one graduate seminar CINE/MS 823:
Curation & Cinema with MOMA curator Dominic Willsdon (Spring 2014).
Rice University
Departmental Committees & Assignments (Department of Anthropology):
• Library Liaison (Fall 2009-Spring 2010)
• Transfer Credit Advisor (Fall 2008- Spring 2010)
• Social Science Divisional Advisor, Will College (Fall 2008-Spring 2010)
• Undergraduate Advisor (Fall 2008-Spring 2009)
Other:
• Curated a public lecture and retrospective on the work of Professor Trinh T. Minh-ha at
the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; in collaboration with the department of Anthropology at
Rice University and the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Houston (2009).
COMMUNITY Peer-Reviewer
• Manuscript titled Relaying Media: Intensive Time, Extinction and the Operational
Crowd. Cultural Anthropology, Duke University Press (2014).
• Proposal review of edited book titled Experimental Film and Anthropology, Arnd
Schneider & Caterina Pasqualino eds. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc. (2013).
• Manuscript titled “Signs Without Name.” Deleuze Studies, Edinburgh University Press
(2010). PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
• American Anthropological Association
• Society for Humanistic Anthropology