Nominees for BRISMES Council (2026-2029)

Kirsty Bennett

Dr Kirsty Bennett is a literary and cultural historian and an honorary researcher in the School of Global Affairs at Lancaster University. 

Her research focuses on cultural entanglements between the ‘Middle East’ and Latin America, stemming from her PhD thesis on colonial/postcolonial/decolonial Algeria and from a parallel life as an Argentine tango dancer, teacher and DJ. 

Kirsty’s first peer-reviewed journal article, “One thousand and one nights’ of tango’: Moving between Argentina, North Africa, and the Middle East’, went on to win the Atlantic Studies Early Career Essay Prize in 2021.

Her current research widens the transnational frame by examining the decolonial roots of the solidarities between Buenos Aires, Beirut, Moscow and East Berlin, as it sheds light on the circulation of music in the 1950s and 60s, with a particular focus on Fairouz and the Rahbani Brothers of Lebanon. 

Kirsty presented her first BRISMES conference paper when she was an MPhil student; she subsequently worked for BRISMES as the conference coordinator (2019-2021), steering the conference through the pandemic, while completing her PhD. 

Kirsty is committed to BRISMES, with a first-hand experience of the Society’s work; her hobbies include photography, which she would like to use to further enhance the Society’s visual presence on social media.