Basil Dababneh (he/they) is a teaching fellow and lecturer at the University of Chicago, where they received their PhD in Cinema and Media Studies in 2025, along with a Certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Their research broadly explores the interplay between affective experience, formal analysis, and political possibility in film and media. Basil works primarily between Cinema and Media Studies and Queer and Trans of Color Studies, with complimentary interests in Affect Theory, Critical Race and Feminist Studies, the Digital Humanities, and Arab Media.
Basil's first book project, tentatively titled Transqueerying the Silly in Media, explores the aesthetic, affective, and counterpolitical dimensions of “silliness” across popular digital cultures, taking the “silly” to be a key category of analysis for queer and trans studies of film and media.
Basil has published in Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, Film Quarterly, and Ampersand: An American Studies Journal. Course previously taught include Film and the Moving Image and Queer/Trans/Media, with future offerings include Introduction to Film Analysis and Children’s Media.