Dr. Refqa Abu-Remaileh

Seminar für Semitistik und Arabistik

Arabic Studies

Assistant Professor

PI ERC project PalREAD

Address

Fabeckstr. 23–25
Room -1.1006
14195

Telephone

+49 30 838 64953

r.abu-remaileh@fu-berlin.de

Homepage

PalREAD – project description

Current Positions

2018–2023

Assistant Professor, Freie Universität Berlin(Germany)

Department of History and Cultural Studies – Seminar for Semitic and Arabic Studies; Principle Investigator of ERC 5-year project “PalREAD – Reading and Reception of Palestinian Literature Since 1948”

2016–present

Affiliated Research Fellow, Forum Transregionale Studien (Berlin,Germany)

Project: “Contrapuntal Fragments: Palestinian Narratives and the Search for the Whole”

Education

2005–2010	PhD (DPhil), Modern Arabic Literature andFilm Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford (Oxford, UK) Thesis title: “Documenting Palestinian Presence: A Study of the Novels of Emile Habibi and the Films of Elia Suleiman”. Supervisors: Robin Ostle and Walter Armbrust.
2003–2004	Masters (MSt), Modern Middle Eastern Studies Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford (Oxford, UK) Thesis title: “Women, Nationalism and Patriarchy in Modern Arabic Literature and Film”.
1998–2002	Bachelor of Arts (BA), English Literature Department of English, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada)
1994–1998	Diploma, International Baccalaureate (IB) Amman Baccalaureate School (Amman, Jordan)
2001–2002	Certificate, Introductory Filmmaking Vancouver Film School (Vancouver, Canada)

Previous Positions

2016–2018	Director, Palestine-Israel Projects, Oxford Research Group (London, UK) Middle East Programme
2014–2016	Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Berlin, Germany) Project: “Resistance and Subversion in Palestinian Literature and Film: Seeking New Comparative Dimensions”.
2013–2014	Postdoctoral Researcher (Marburg, Germany), interdisciplinary Re-Configurations Research Network, based at the Center for Near and Middle East Studies at Marburg University.
2012–2013	EUME Postdoctoral Fellow (Berlin, Germany), in affiliation with the Forum Transregional Studies/Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Project: “Narrative Entanglements: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Approach to Palestinian Literature and Film”.
2012–2015	Director, Palestinian Citizens of Israel Group, Oxford Research Group (London, UK)
2010–2012	Manager, Middle East Programme, Oxford Research Group (London, UK)
2004–2007	Coordinator, The Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma Europe (London, UK)
2004	Researcher, The Guardian Newspaper (London, UK)

Fellowships and Awards

2014–2016	Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany.
2012–2013	Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers, Forum for Transregional Studies, Germany.
2007–2009	Scholarship, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship.
2005–2006	Scholarship, Overseas Research Student Award (Doctoral), University of Oxford.
2000–2001	Scholarship, Canada Exchange Scholar, University of British Columbia.
1998–1999	Scholarship, Outstanding Student Initiative Scholarship (Undergraduate), merit-based award. University of British Columbia.
2008–2009	Award, Vice Chancellor’s Fund Award, University of Oxford.
2008–2009	Award, St John’s College Music Grant, University of Oxford.
2008–2009	Award, St John’s College Blues Squad Grant, University of Oxford.

PalREAD aims to tell the story of Palestinian literature by tracing, collecting, mapping and analyzing the development and evolution of Palestinian literary and cultural production and practices from 1948 to the present across various Arab, European, American, and Latin American countries.

2007 “Filming the Modern Middle East” (Book review). Arab Media and Society, Issue 2, Summer. 2008 “Palestinian anti-narratives in the films of Elia Suleiman”. Arab Media and SocietyJournal, Issue 5, Spring. <http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=670>

2009 The Meeting Place of British Middle East Studies: Emerging Scholars, Emergent Research and Approaches. Co-editor with Amanda Phillips. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

2010 “Documenting Palestinian Presence: A Study of the Novels of Emile Habibi and the Films of Elia Suleiman.” DPhil Thesis, deposited at the Bodleian Library. St John’s College: Oxford University.

2012 “Egypt's Culture Wars” (Book review). International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 44 no. 2, May 2012, pp. 366-368.

2013 “Narratives in Conflict: Emile Habibi’s al-Waqa’i‘ al-Ghariba and Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention”. In Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communications Practices in Lebanon and Palestine. Eds. Dina Matar and Zahera Harb. London: I.B. Tauris.

2014 “The Kanafani Effect: Resistance and Counter-Narration in the Films of Michel Khleifi and Elia Suleiman”. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Vol. 7, Issue 2 (Special Issue on Palestine and the Moving Image).

2014 “Longing for Haifa in Haifa: Exile in the Homeland?” TRAFO - Blog for TransregionalResearch <http://trafo.hypotheses.org/1400>.

2015 “The Afterlives of Ilitizam: Emile Habibi through a Kanafaniesque Lens of Resistance Literature”. In Commitment and Beyond: Reflections on/of the Political in Arabic Literature since the 1940s. Eds. Friederike Pannewick and Georges Khalil. Wiesbaden: Reichert-Verlag.

2015 “Elia Suleiman: Narrating Negative Space”. In Ten Arab Filmmakers: Political Dissent and Social Critique. Ed. Josef Gugler. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

2017 “Novel as Contrapuntal Reading: Elias Khoury’s Children of the Ghetto, My Name is Adam.” In The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Conflicting Historical Traumas. New York: Columbia University Press (forthcoming).