Nina Vabab is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University Institute for Cultural Inquiry. Her research examines how audio-visual media construct cultural memory, drawing on Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction—particularly the notions of archive, trace, supplement, and hauntology—to analyse the ways images and narratives take shape across different media. Her current project explores Pahlavi-era memories, focusing on how personal recollections, films, television programmes, and archival reports intersect to produce contested and unstable versions of the past.

Previously, Nina earned an MA in Global Media and Post-national Communication: Theoretical & Contemporary Issues from SOAS University of London, where the UK government awarded the prestigious Chevening Scholarship (September 2015 – September 2016).