Hanan Kassab-Hassan

Hanan Kassab-Hassan has over 30 years of academic, research, and cultural management experience. Since she got her PhD in theatre from the Sorbonne in Paris (1982), she was a tenure professor at the Damascus University in Syria, in addition to several professorships in the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus, and the IESAV institute, Saint Joseph university in Beirut, Lebanon.
 
Dr. Kassab-Hassan was also the General Manager of the Damascus Opera House (2009-2011), the General Secretary of the Damascus Arab Capital of Culture festival for the year 2008, and the dean of the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts (2006-2009).
 
She was a member of the Strategic Committee of the “Conseil Cuturel de l’Union Pour la Méditerranée”in France (2009 to 2011); an external consultant for the International Fund for the Promotion of Culture, UNESCO (2014 and 2015), and for the Intangible Cultural Heritage Section, UNESCO (2016). Since 2015,  she is a board member of Roberto Cimetta Fund. 
 
She was awarded the title of Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres;  as well as Chevalier, and later Officier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques offered to her by the French government for her contribution to the French culture.
 
Dr. Kassab-Hassan also directed theatre plays. She translated works by Jean Genet, Bernard Marie Koltès, Samuel Beckett, and Saadallah Wannous. She also co-authored a French-English-Arabic Dictionary of Terms and Concepts of Drama and Performing Arts, which is one of the main references in the field of theatre in the Arab world.
 
Dr Kassab-Hassan is one of the women presented in the Dictionary of Creative Women published in France, éditions Bellin, Des femmes, Antoinette Fouque), (2012) .