Blake Atwood
Biographic Data
| ID | 3946388 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Blake Atwood |
| GIVEN NAMES | Blake |
| FAMILY NAME | Atwood |
| SIGNATURE | ATWOOD B |
| AFFILIATIONS | American University of Beirut |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7794-2958 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Speculative Labor of Screenwriters in Iran’s New Streaming Economy
This article explores the speculative labor of screenwriters working in Iran’s highly regulated but commercially driven streaming economy. Services like Filimo and Namava promise creative freedom absent from state television but face intersecting pressures from censorship, audience expectations, and algorithmic demands. Drawing on interviews, I define speculative labor as the anticipatory strategies that shape creative decisions amid such forces.…
Artificial Intelligence in Iran
This article challenges the dominant narrative of AI in Iran as a symbol of national success and technological sovereignty by examining its materiality. The Iranian government often underscores AI’s role in countering sanctions and securing national interests. However, this national narrative overlooks the complex realities of AI’s implementation. By examining the material endpoints of AI – such as data centers, supercomputers, and digital labor …
Between Autonomy and Automation
This article studies the tension between autonomy and automation as it is experienced by Syrian refugee food-delivery drivers who work on the Toters app in Beirut, Lebanon. Central to this study are the freedom narratives these drivers construct, which reflect their ambivalent relationship with digital labor platforms. These narratives highlight how the algorithmic nature of the Toters app provides opportunities for self-employment and flexible w…
Precarity and Possibility
At first glance, Iran and Lebanon may appear to have very little in common when it comes to state intervention in the media economy. The Iranian government oversees nearly every aspect of media production, distribution, and exhibition, while the Lebanese state exercises relatively little oversight of media and offers no financial or infrastructural support to the country’s robust creative industries. Given the divergent approaches to regulating m…
Television at Work
Reviewed by: Television at Work: Industrial Media and American Labor by Kit Hughes Blake Atwood (bio) Television at Work: Industrial Media and American Labor By Kit Hughes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 296. Over the last half century, there has been no shortage of American television shows dedicated to the workplace. From early sitcoms like Our Miss Brooks (1952–56) to feminist shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77) to mor…
A City by the Sea
What kinds of social, cultural, and political narratives emerge when we pay attention to how media are physically rendered as trash? By reducing media to their material forms and tracing their journey from use to disuse, the stories behind media activism start to appear. This article studies where Beirut’s media waste goes and who brings it there. A women-only beach, a refugee camp from the early 20th century, and some of the most vulnerable popu…
Reform Cinema in Iran
It’s nearly impossible to separate contemporary Iranian cinema from the Islamic revolution that transformed film production in the country in the late 1970s. As the aims of the revolution shifted and hardened once Khomeini took power and as an eight-year war with Iraq dragged on, Iranian filmmakers confronted new restrictions. In the 1990s, however, the Reformist Movement, led by Mohammad Khatami, and the film industry, developed an unlikely part…
Reform Cinema in Iran
Sense and Censorship in the Islamic Republic of Iran
38 World Literature Today I n August 2011 the Perso-Iranian blogosphere exploded with news that the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance, the governmental agency charged with overseeing and regulating literature in Iran, had denied a permit for the republication of the twelfth-century epic poem Khosrow and Shirin, by Nezami Ganjavi . Officials took offense with the classic love story’s references to the consumption of wine and unchaperoned vi…
Artificial Intelligence in Iran
This article challenges the dominant narrative of AI in Iran as a symbol of national success and technological sovereignty by examining its materiality. The Iranian government often underscores AI’s role in countering sanctions and securing national interests. However, this national narrative overlooks the complex realities of AI’s implementation. By examining the material endpoints of AI – such as data centers, supercomputers, and digital labor …
A City by the Sea
What kinds of social, cultural, and political narratives emerge when we pay attention to how media are physically rendered as trash? By reducing media to their material forms and tracing their journey from use to disuse, the stories behind media activism start to appear. This article studies where Beirut’s media waste goes and who brings it there. A women-only beach, a refugee camp from the early 20th century, and some of the most vulnerable popu…
Sense and Censorship in the Islamic Republic of Iran
38 World Literature Today I n August 2011 the Perso-Iranian blogosphere exploded with news that the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance, the governmental agency charged with overseeing and regulating literature in Iran, had denied a permit for the republication of the twelfth-century epic poem Khosrow and Shirin, by Nezami Ganjavi . Officials took offense with the classic love story’s references to the consumption of wine and unchaperoned vi…
Sense and Censorship in the Islamic Republic of Iran
38 World Literature Today I n August 2011 the Perso-Iranian blogosphere exploded with news that the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance, the governmental agency charged with overseeing and regulating literature in Iran, had denied a permit for the republication of the twelfth-century epic poem Khosrow and Shirin, by Nezami Ganjavi . Officials took offense with the classic love story’s references to the consumption of wine and unchaperoned vi…
Reform Cinema in Iran
Reform Cinema in Iran
It’s nearly impossible to separate contemporary Iranian cinema from the Islamic revolution that transformed film production in the country in the late 1970s. As the aims of the revolution shifted and hardened once Khomeini took power and as an eight-year war with Iraq dragged on, Iranian filmmakers confronted new restrictions. In the 1990s, however, the Reformist Movement, led by Mohammad Khatami, and the film industry, developed an unlikely part…
A City by the Sea
What kinds of social, cultural, and political narratives emerge when we pay attention to how media are physically rendered as trash? By reducing media to their material forms and tracing their journey from use to disuse, the stories behind media activism start to appear. This article studies where Beirut’s media waste goes and who brings it there. A women-only beach, a refugee camp from the early 20th century, and some of the most vulnerable popu…
Precarity and Possibility
At first glance, Iran and Lebanon may appear to have very little in common when it comes to state intervention in the media economy. The Iranian government oversees nearly every aspect of media production, distribution, and exhibition, while the Lebanese state exercises relatively little oversight of media and offers no financial or infrastructural support to the country’s robust creative industries. Given the divergent approaches to regulating m…
Television at Work
Reviewed by: Television at Work: Industrial Media and American Labor by Kit Hughes Blake Atwood (bio) Television at Work: Industrial Media and American Labor By Kit Hughes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 296. Over the last half century, there has been no shortage of American television shows dedicated to the workplace. From early sitcoms like Our Miss Brooks (1952–56) to feminist shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77) to mor…
Between Autonomy and Automation
This article studies the tension between autonomy and automation as it is experienced by Syrian refugee food-delivery drivers who work on the Toters app in Beirut, Lebanon. Central to this study are the freedom narratives these drivers construct, which reflect their ambivalent relationship with digital labor platforms. These narratives highlight how the algorithmic nature of the Toters app provides opportunities for self-employment and flexible w…
Artificial Intelligence in Iran
This article challenges the dominant narrative of AI in Iran as a symbol of national success and technological sovereignty by examining its materiality. The Iranian government often underscores AI’s role in countering sanctions and securing national interests. However, this national narrative overlooks the complex realities of AI’s implementation. By examining the material endpoints of AI – such as data centers, supercomputers, and digital labor …
The Speculative Labor of Screenwriters in Iran’s New Streaming Economy
This article explores the speculative labor of screenwriters working in Iran’s highly regulated but commercially driven streaming economy. Services like Filimo and Namava promise creative freedom absent from state television but face intersecting pressures from censorship, audience expectations, and algorithmic demands. Drawing on interviews, I define speculative labor as the anticipatory strategies that shape creative decisions amid such forces.…
Political science (7 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Art (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Media studies (4 works) · History (3 works) · Middle East Politics and Society (3 works) · Cinema and Media Studies (2 works) · Engineering (2 works) · Gender Studies (2 works)