Mary Jirmanus Saba

Mary Jirmanus Saba is a geographer, artist, and cultural worker whose practice spans film, performance, and political organizing. As a UC Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, she investigates intersections of labor, care, and social movements.

• Education: Harvard College (B.A.), UC Berkeley (M.A., Ph.D.)

Her research centers on ecologies of finance and resistance, with a focus on gendered reproductive labor and visual activism in the Arab world and beyond. Her award-winning film A Feeling Greater Than Love (2017) examines erased labor histories in Lebanon, while projects like We Felt Again That Everything is New combine archival research and installation art to explore labor temporality.

• Scientific Awards: FIPRESCI Critics Prize, Berlinale Forum (2017)

Supported by grants from the US National Science Foundation, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, and Harvard Film Study Center, her work bridges academic and artistic spaces, including collaborations with ta3waniya/cooperative and the Franz Fanon Cultural Fund.