Career Path – Highlights
Since 04/2026 Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Arabic Studies, University of Bamberg.
Courses include: Modern Arabic literature, Creative Writing, and Literary
Translation.
Since 01/2016 Publicly appointed Translator and Interpreter (20%), freelance, Clients
include: Bavarian Administrative Court, Federal Office for Migration and
Refugees (various branch offices), Health Department in Nuremberg, and
Police of Middle Franconia. (Language pairs: Arabic, English, Spanish ↔
German).
11/2018 – 09/2025 Research Associate, Department of Arabic Studies, University of Bamberg.
09/2025 Organizer, EURAMAL Project, „Mapping Our Methodologies: Conversations Across Traditions in Arabic literary Studies “.
10/2024 Adjunct Lecturer, Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Sprachvertiefung Arabisch - Moderne Arabische Literatur: Frauen im Rampenlicht.
05/2024 - 09/2025 Academic Advisor, M.A. Arabic Studies
01/2023 TAFL ToT Intensive Workshop, Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo.
05/2022 - 12/2022 Organizer, DAAD Projekt, "Diverse Pedagogy and Reception: (Re)forming Subjectivities in Arab Women’s Writings".
10/2022 - 09/2023 Lecturer of Modern Standard Arabic, Center of Languages, Otto-Friedrich Universität Bamberg.
03/2021 - 04/2022 Publicly appointed Arabic language examiner, Special Foreign Language Regulations, Government of Middle Franconia.
08/2021 Certified in "Teaching in Higher Education", Fortbildungszentrum
Hochschulehre, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.
2020 Nominated for the Bettina-Paetzold-Prize for good Gender Teaching.
Since 2020 PhD in Arabic Studies, supervised by Prof. Dr. Lale Behzadi, University of Bamberg.
10/2018 - 09/2019 Adjunct Lecturer, Egyptian-Arabic I & II, Department of Arabic Studies, University of Bayreuth.
04/2017- 04/2018 Post-graduate Seminar Program (with examinations) in Classical and Modern Arabic Literary Traditions, Chair of Arabic and Semitic Studies, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.
02/2016 Master of Arts in English and Comparative Literature
(ECLT), American University in Cairo (AUC). Master’s thesis: "Female subjectivity in Times of Contraints"
2015 Research Assistant, Rare Books and Special Collection Library, AUC.
2014 Editorial Assistant, Alif, Journal of Comparative Poetics, AUC.
07/2007 Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Philology, Faculty of Al-Alsun, Ain-Shams
University (minors: Arabic and English).
Memberships
Since 12/2024 Member, Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies (NSMES)
Since 05/2024 Member, European Association for Modern Arabic Literature (EURAMAL).
Since 2022 Member, German Oriental Society (DMG).
11/2022 - 10/2023 Deputy representative of Academic Staff („Mittelbau”), Institute for Oriental Studies.
11/2021 - 10/2022 Representative of Academic Staff („Mittelbau”), Institute for Oriental Studies.
Since 2019 Member, German Working Group for the Near East (DAVO).
Since 2019 Member, Fachverband Arabisch e.V.
10/2014 - 06/2015 Academic Representative of AUC graduate students, Graduate Student Association (GSA), AUC.
09/2012 - 09/2014 President, Philosophy Club, AUC.
Forschung
Research Interests:
- Modern Arabic Literature
- Translation Studies
- Arabic and Comparative Literature
- Women’s Literature
Doctoral Project:
Everyday Heroines: (Re)Formation of Subjectivity and Kinship in al-Zayyat and Ashour. This project seeks to examine nuanced female characters that defy stereotypes while not being typically revolutionary. Their choices in expressing their subjectivities distinguish them from the mainstream, yet present them as everyday women who resist categorization and fixed labeling.
To demonstrate the individuality of each character, this project employs Susan Friedman’s concept of intersectionality as a methodology of analysis, alongside a set of theoretical frameworks. The analytical approach begins with utilizing Beauvoir’s notion of becoming a womanand incorporates bell hooks' understanding of kinship. The research explores diverse female characters in four novels written in Egypt during the second half of the twentieth century by Latifa al-Zayyat and Radwa Ashour. It aims to investigate the (re)formation of women’s subjectivities through the notion of kinship (both blood-related and non-blood-related). This concept is shaped by the presence and absence of love, the establishment of friendship as a substitute for romantic and familial ties, and alternative modes of motherhood.
The study begins with love as a framework, starting in a romantic form with the character of Laila in The Open Door (1960) and continuing in The Owner of the House (1994) both by al-Zayyat, leading to a Beauvoirian expression of authentic subjectivity in the character of Samia. This character paves the way for Sawsan, a non-conformist consciousness in Ashour’s Khadeega and
Sawsan (1986). In this novel, we observe a transitional phase of contemplating or rethinking relational dynamics, where different structures of familial and romantic love continue to provide a context for the (re)formation of female subjectivity. Against the backdrop of failing traditional kinships, the text demonstrates a state of disillusionment and challenges the idea of romantic love as the primary form of relationships. This theme is developed with Nada in Ashour’s Farag 2008 (also known as Blue Lorries), where bell hooks’ concept of friendship emerges as an alternative form of non-blood kinship in the chosen
absence of romantic love. In addition, the study extends to examine traditional and non-traditional forms of motherhood and the mother-daughter dynamics within the four novels.
Publikationen
Publications:
Writing the Self, ed. Noran Amin & Safinaz Saad, Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press. Forthcoming Summer 2027.
“When We Talk About Literature: Report on a Meeting of EURAMAL’s Early Career Scholars”. With Adéla Provazníková. Maydan Rivista, March 2026.
Becoming Samia: The (Hi)story of an Authentic Woman in The Owner of the House. In Humanidades y comunicación desde una perspectiva de género. Estudios plurales, ed. by Antonia Víñez Sánchez, Juan Sáez Durán, and Sergio Marín Conejo. Valencia: Editorial Tirant Lo Blanch, June 2025, 93–119.
Alienation à la Madeleine: The Migration Experience of a French Woman in Radwa Ashour’s Blue Lorries. In Displacement, Emplacement, and Migration: An Interdisciplinary Collection of Essays, ed. by Touhid Chowdhury. Bamberg: UB Press, 2024, 69-83.
Female Subjectivity in Times of Constraints: Naguib Mahfouz in the Beginning and the End and Gabriel García Márquez in Chronicle of a Death Foretold. DAR The American University in Cairo: 2016.
International Collaborations:
09/2025, Organizer, EURAMAL Project, “Mapping Our Methodologies: Conversations Across Traditions in Arabic literary Studies”, Workshop for early career researchers, Oslo, Norway.
12/2022, Organizer, DAAD Project "Diverse Pedagogy and Reception: (Re)forming Subjectivities in Arab Women’s Writings", Workshop, British University in Cairo and Cairo University, Egypt.
02/2020, Co-organizer in DAAD Project, „Rezeptive Dialektkompetenz und Interkomprehension in der AraF-Didaktik“, Workshop, Mohammed V University of Rabat, Morocco.
06/2019, Co-organizer, „Kompetenzorientierung im Arabischunterricht”, German-Arab Conference of the Fachverband Arabisch, University of Bamberg, Germany.
Selected Presentations:
09/2025 Panel organizer “What can we learn from reading literature” with my contribution “Arabic Literature within Contemporary Humanities”. Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies (NSMES 2025), Oslo, Norway.
09/2025 “Skimming for Meaning, Writing for Mastery: Literature-Based Writing in Arabic Instruction”. European Network for Teachers of Arabic ENTA 7, SOAS, London, UK.
09/2025 Panel organizer “Different journeys, shared dilemmas: Transformation and Identity in Women’s Arabic Literature” with my contribution “The Alchemy of Self-Love: Silent Revolutions Transforming the Invisible”. German Orientalists’ Day DOT 2025, Erlangen, Germany.
09/2025 Panel “Behave Yourself! Adab and the Will to Change the World”, with my contribution on “Reconstructing kinship in a fractured world: a literary model”. German Orientalists’ Day DOT 2025, Erlangen, Germany
12/2024 Panel organizer “Crafting an Advanced Arabic Curriculum in higher education” with my contribution “An Advanced Arabic Reading Course”. European Network
for Teaching Arabic (ENTA-6) Teaching Arabic Across Contexts, Leiden,
Netherlands.