Education:
Ph.D. 2023 Indiana University
M.A. 2007 School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
B.A. 2003 Oberlin College
Research Areas:
Economic anthropology; attention; anthropology of aesthetics, the senses, and the body; media capitalism; global studies; vibration; belly dance; the Middle East and North Africa
Background:
Dr. Morley is a sociocultural anthropologist interested in the workings of colonial/capitalist power on and through social media and performing arts. Her dissertation investigated the changing belly dance industry in Egypt, explaining how the visual aesthetics of expanding media capitalism are affecting career opportunities and enabling foreign dancers to dominate the publicly-visible sectors of an industry central to Egyptian identity and tourism. Through this work, Dr. Morley is developing an anthropological theory of attention as both resource and weapon.
She has two forthcoming publications: “Social Media and the Commodification of Attention/Inattention in the Changing Egyptian Belly Dance Industry,” which will appear in a special economic issue of Anthropology of the Middle East in late 2023, and “Egyptian Belly Dance IS Feeling: Intersubjectivity, Tarab, and Cross-Cultural Performance” in The Routledge Companion to the Anthropology of Performance, edited by Lauren Griffith and David Syring (In Press).
Title: Visiting Assistant Professor
Department: Department of Anthropology
Email address: Email me
Phone: (828) 262-6383
Fax: (828) 262-2982