Rami Kanafani is a PhD candidate in the History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. His doctoral research examines postwar architectural practices in the US that turned the planet as a whole into an object of representation and design. He investigates various institutional and individual attempts to foster a planetary culture within closed ecological systems that forged new relationships between humans, nonhumans, and the environment. Alongside an interest in the rise of environmentalism and its intersection with cybernetics, he also explores the relationship between the Anthropocene, posthumanism and architectural history.
CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS
“A New Alchemy for the Whole Planet: Arks, Islands, and Planetary Salvation,” at The Third Ecology, EAHN Reykjavik, and The Ambasz Institute at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, Fall 2023.
“The Green Line’s Organisms: Human-Plant Relations in War-Torn Beirut,” DocTalks x MoMA, Fall 2022.
Co-organizer of Precarity Conference, Department of Architecture, Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania. Spring 2022.
Awards
Will M. Mehlhorn Scholarship, Department of Architecture, Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2022
