Biography

Wazhmah Osman is an assistant professor in Temple University’s Department of Media Studies and Production and a faculty member in both the Master of Science in Globalization and Development Communication program and the PhD program in Media and Communication. She is a faculty affiliate of the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies (GSWS) program, as well as the South Asia Center at University of Pennsylvania.

Osman earned her PhD in 2012 from New York University, where she studied Media, Culture and Communication. She is also a graduate of the Culture and Media program in Anthropology.

She is currently writing a book that analyzes the impact of international funding and cross-border media flows on the national politics of Afghanistan, the region and beyond. Osman is also researching how new technologies of war, violence and representation, predicated on old colonial tropes, are being repackaged and deployed during “the war on terror.” Her critically acclaimed documentary, Postcards from Tora Bora, has been shown in festivals around the world.

Her research and teaching are rooted in feminist media ethnographies that focus on the political economy of global media industries and the regimes of representation and visual culture they produce.