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Aula Árabe Universitaria 4

From September 13, 2022 until April 18, 2023Check dates and times for each event.
MADRID, CóRDOBA AND ONLINE
Casa Árabe’s two headquarters (at Calle Alcalá, 62 in Madrid and Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9 in Cordoba). Check dates and times for each event. Check entry conditions for each activity.

On September 26, this yearly conference series organized in collaboration with university programs in the Autonomous Region of Madrid and in Cordoba will be returning. With 13 sessions in all, it will be lasting until April 18, 2023.

At this fourth edition and throughout the academic year of 2022-23, Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 (AAU4) will be hosting 13 conferences in Madrid and three in Cordoba, where students will get the chance to delve further into the Arab and Islamic world.

The conferences will deal with a wide range of subjects involving the Arab and Islamic world, from ancient history to the modern day, including topics and speakers selected by the associated university programs in accordance with their curricular needs and interests.

The lecture series has been organized with the cooperation of the undergraduate and graduate university programs (including Master’s programs and doctorates) given at the universities in the Autonomous Region of Madrid (UAH, UAM, UCM, UC3M, Universidad Nebrija, Saint Louis University - Madrid Campus and URJC), in Cordoba (Loyola University and UCO) and in Segovia (IE University).

This year 22 university programs are participating (18 from Madrid, 3 from Cordoba and one from Segovia): 7 from UAM, 6 from UCM, 2 from UCO and one each from the universities of Alcalá de Henares, UC3M, IE University, Loyola de Andalucía, Nebrija, URJC and Saint Louis University’s Madrid Campus. Of these, 12 are MA programs, 9 are bachelor’s degree programs and 1 is a PhD program.

Aula Árabe Universitaria (AAU) is an inter-university cooperation program organized by Casa Árabe with the cooperation of universities in Madrid and Cordoba, with the goal of promoting knowledge about the Arab and Islamic world, as well as complementing and enriching the training given in the different associated university programs, encouraging dialogue between disciplines and offering students, faculty and researchers from these programs the chance to make contact with relevant international speakers and experts on different subjects and topics related to the Arab world.

The conferences will be held at Casa Árabe’s facilities, during the usual schedule for evening lectures (7:00 p.m.). They will be open to the general public with live translation when necessary. Students who have attended more than 50% of the conferences (6) will receive a certificate from Aula Árabe Universitaria.

In order to earn the certificate, they must sign up to receive the Casa Árabe Newsletter, indicating “Aula Árabe Universitaria” as one of their interests. By doing this, they will occasionally receive announcements and updates on the various AAU conferences.

Attendance at each conference is recorded with a stamp in the “Passport to the Arab World”, a personalized document given to them the first time they attend one of the conferences in the series. Those students who attend online will be able to have their attendance recorded through the chat space on Casa Árabe’s YouTube channel, where the conferences are shown.

This year, we will continue to be sistered with the program Aula Mediterrània, at the IEMed, a collaboration begun two years ago. Students from both programs can attend the respective conferences online, which will also be counted for certification purposes, in addition to those events organized jointly, thanks to the speaker exchange between the two programs.

Further information about AAU1 (2019-20), AAU2 (2020-21) and AAU3 (2021-22)
Aula Árabe Universitaria 4
  • Iraq nearly twenty years after its “liberation”

    September 26, 20227:00 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the venue’s capacity is reached.
    On September 26, our program Aula Árabe Universitaria will be back with this conference, at which analyst Hayder al-Khoei will explain the current situation in the country. The event can be watched live on our Youtube channel (in Spanish and in English).
    We are just a few months away from the twentieth anniversary of the war in Iraq, launched by the US in March 2003, when it sent 160,000 soldiers with the support of the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland. According to the former president of the United States, George W. Bush, that invasion would lead to the “liberation of Iraq.” Two years later, during his speech at the Fort Bragg military base (you can watch the full speech in English by following this link), Bush argued that, as a pillar of his “war on terror,” eliminating terrorists who “know that as freedom takes root in Iraq, it will inspire millions throughout the Middle East to demand their freedom as well.” However, the reality in Iraq today is radically different, and the region, whose popular demands of 2011 have been silenced, is no better off politically, economically or socially.

    At this opening conference in the new Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 event series organized by Casa Árabe and held with the cooperation of the Master’s degree in Contemporary Arab and Islamic Studies (MEAIC) at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, analyst Hayder al-Khoei will be examining current event in this key country in the stability of the Middle East, in terms of the American concept of democracy, in a nation mired in internal struggles, fighting between armed militias, with a failed government plagued by corruption, and the state’s sovereignty violated on a daily basis. The author will be accompanied by Carmen Rodríguez, lecturer in the Department of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid, and Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe's International Relations Coordinator. Presented by Cristina Juarranz, Programming Coordinator and Assistant Director of Casa Árabe.

    Hayder al-Khoei is the head of external relations at the Al-Khoei Institute in Iraq, where his work focuses on intra- and inter-religious dialogue in the Middle East region. Prior to this, he was a member of the Middle East and North Africa programs at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and the European Council on Foreign Relations, where his research focused on political and security-related developments in Iraq and Syria. He earned a Master’s degree in International Studies and Diplomacy from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and another Master’s degree in Islamic Studies from the Islamic College of London.
  • Coverage of the Middle East conflicts in the Spanish media
    Photo: Cristina Sánchez

    Coverage of the Middle East conflicts in the Spanish media

    October 20, 20227:00 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:00 p.m. Free entrance until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In Spanish.
    On Thursday, October 20, Casa Árabe has organized a meeting with journalists Lola Bañón (University of Valencia) and Cristina Sánchez (RNE). This is the second session in Aula Árabe Universitaria, which you can watch live on our YouTube channel (in Spanish).
    The Middle East is a territory enduring constant strategic disputes. Paradoxically, despite shared interests and their geographical and cultural proximity, the Spanish media have gradually been reducing coverage about the region. One of the reasons has been the economic crisis which led to a decrease in stable correspondents in most media, with the exception of some public networks. The Middle East only returns to the spotlight when conflict escalates, often with news items put out by freelance journalists whose articles are only purchased when they contain elements of violence and sensationalism.

    Lola Bañón, a journalist and professor at the University of Valencia, will be discussing how this results in an obvious bias in the way countries from the region are portrayed, through a partial, de-contextualized viewpiont that translates into persisting prejudice towards populations and a progressive alignment of stories about the Arab world, not always on the basis of professional journalistic criteria, but rather in line with Spanish and European foreign policy.

    As for Cristina Sánchez, a journalist at RNE and a correspondent in the region, using her experience she will be telling us about the logistical difficulties and the economic cost of covering conflicts in the Middle East on the ground, particularly in Syria, Iraq and Gaza, where she has worked in person. She will then discuss the relationship between information given in the Spanish media and the presence of journalists on assignment, because without investment in professionals in the field, coverage would be impossible. Afterwards, she will talk about the different audiovisual formats she has worked with in order to address different issues in the Middle East, with a “docuweb” in a podcast format titled “Living Gaza” as an example, as well as the importance of personal testimonials in explaining context.

    This is the second session in the program Aula Árabe Universitaria 4, organized with the cooperation of the University Master’s Degree program in International Journalism at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC), given by Lola Bañón, a journalist and professor at the University of Valencia, and Cristina Sánchez, an RNE journalist, with the participation of Amal Abu-Warda Pérez, a professor in the Master’s degree program who will be introducing them, and Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe’s Training and Economics Coordinator, who will be the event’s moderator.

    Lola Bañón, a PhD in Communication Sciences, is a professor with the Department of Language Theory at the University of Valencia’s School of Philology, Translation and Communication. For 25 years, she has worked in the newsroom at Radiotelevisión Valenciana and has authored several publications related to communication and the Arab world. Discussing these issues, she takes part in various international forums and is a jury member at the International Documentary Festival of the Al Jazeera network.

    Cristina Sánchez
    Cristina Sánchez Hernández holds a degree in Journalism from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Masters degree in Communication and Armed Conflict. A journalist with the International Section at RNE since 2007, she has been a special envoy to over 20 countries, covering historical events such as the presidential elections in Afghanistan and Egypt, the earthquake in Haiti, the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Libya, the wars in Gaza, Syria and Iraq, the Maydan Square in Ukraine, the arrival of refugees in Greece, Hungary and Algeria, and others. Director of Radio 5’s “Countries in Conflict” program for nearly one decade, she was a Middle East correspondent based in Jerusalem for four years (2017-2021). She has received numerous awards throughout her career in journalism, including the Emilio Castelar Communication Award of 2014, the Cirilo Rodríguez Award of 2017 and the Ameco Women’s Press Award of 2019. 
  • The Corporeal Life of Commerce at Sea
    @Khor Fakkan at sunset

    The Corporeal Life of Commerce at Sea

    November 07, 20227:00 p.m.
    MADRID / ONLINE
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:00 p.m. Free entrance until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In Spanish and English with simultaneous translation.
    Third lecture of the Aula Árabe Universitaria IV program, by Laleh Khalili, professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London.
    On Monday, November 7th, Casa Árabe will present the conference "The Corporeal Life of Commerce at Sea", given by Laleh Khalili, professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London with the participation of Ángel Rodríguez García-Brazales, coordinator of the Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the UAM and director of the Master's Degree in Economic Intelligence and Geopolitics at the same university, Berta Álvarez-Miranda, lecturer in Sociology at the UCM, and Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe's Training and Economics coordinator, who will moderate the session.  

    The conference is being held in collaboration with with the Bachelor in International Relations and the Master in European Union and the Mediterranean: historical, cultural, political, economic and social basis of the Complutense University Madrid and the Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics of the Autonomous University of Madrid. It is the third session of the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 program, which can be seen live on our YouTube channel.

    The everyday life of seafarers steaming across Arab seas and serving Arab ports today is shaped not only by their daily interactions with one another and with their officers (who are often of other nationalities), but also by the corporeal transformations they experience in their sensory relationship with the sea and the stars, the weather, and the technology around them. The body of the seafarer is the fulcrum upon which global and workplace asymmetries of power, long traditions and conventions of seafaring, and gendered and racialised subjectivities all conjoin in complex and unexpected ways.  

    The conference will speak not only of wages stolen and hunger ships managed by rapacious and unregulated shipping companies or the affective power of loneliness and loss at sea, but also the ephemeral moments of joy and solidarity forged aboard ships, and of the pleasures of arrival at ports. In focusing on the corporeal life of commerce at sea, we’ll pay heed to exhortations of feminists and scholars of racial capitalism to centre the lives of those forgotten or dismissed at the conjuncture of capital accumulation and raced and gendered hierarchies.  

    Laleh Khalili is a professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London. In her first two books, Laleh has examined the representations and practices of violence. These two books are titled Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: the Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge 2007) and Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgency (Stanford 2013). She has also co-edited a volume with Jillian Schwedler titled Policing and Prisons in the Middle East: Formations of Coercion (Hurst 2010) that also analyses the role of state violence in Middle Eastern politics. Her most recent book, Sinews of War and Trade (Verso 2020) examines the role of maritime infrastructures as conduits of movement of technologies, capital, people and cargo. She is currently working on a larger project about the lifeworlds of petroleum. The project will range across the decades and continents to examine how the production of and trade in oil and gas has transformed regimes of labour and property, international law, insurance and finance, and science and technology.
  • Muslim Fashions: from hiding beauty to managing it  

    Muslim Fashions: from hiding beauty to managing it  

    November 10, 20227:00 p.m.
    MADRID / ONLINE
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In English and Spanish, with simultaneous translation.
    On Thursday, November 10, the fourth conference of the Aula Árabe Universitaria IV programme will take place at Casa Árabe in Madrid, given by Arzu Ünal, researcher in social anthropology at Kadir Has University (Istanbul).
    The conference, organized in collaboration with the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid's Social and Cultural Anthropology degree program, and within the framework of the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 program, will be given by Arzu Ünal, researcher in social anthropology at Kadir Has University (Istanbul), and will include the participation of Virtudes Téllez, coordinator of the previously mentioned degree and professor at the Social Anthropology and Philosophical Thought Department (UAM), and Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe's International Relations Coordinator, who will moderate the event.

    The emergence of “Islamic fashion” as a concept and its increasing popularity has not only unsettled established truths of fashion theory, which locate fashion exclusively in the West. It has also opened new horizons in the literature, which has begun to pay equal attention to other items of Muslim women’s dress and their clothing practices in order to explore tensions between religion and fashion in the Middle East.  

    Arzu Ünal’s talk will show how fashioning a Muslim appearance does not necessarily imply a subversion of modern notions of femininity or, for that matter, a rejection of “inherited traditional Islam.” Modest and religiously inspired clothing brings together Islamic concerns and contemporary ideas of beauty. Her talk will address changing definition of modesty in veiling away from “hiding one’s beauty” toward a notion of “managing one’s beauty” based on her ethnographic work in the Netherlands.    

    Arzu Ünal is a social anthropologist. She obtained her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at University of Amsterdam in 2013. After a post-doctorate at that same University, she worked as a lecturer in the Cultural Studies Program at Sabancı University and the Department of Sociology at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. She has published on Muslim fashions and material culture in Europe and family in Turkey.  Ünal’s main research areas are gender and sexuality studies, diaspora studies and Muslim material cultures. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the ERC-funded project titled “Stating National Abjection” at Kadir Has University (Istanbul). Her work examines islamically inspired theatrical performances in Turkey and its diasporic contexts. 
  • Interpreting or mediation in policing? When regular words become swear words

    January 17, 20237:00 p.m.
    MADRID / ONLINE
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (Calle Alcalá, 62) and Casa Árabe's YouTube channel. 7:00 p.m. Free admission until the auditorium's capacity is reached.
    In Spanish.
    On January 17, the fifth conference in the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 program will be held in Madrid, given by Mustapha Taibi, a professor of translation and interpreting at the University of Western Sydney (Australia).
    Ethical codes stipulate that professional interpreters must faithfully interpret the entire speech of the parties involved, even when it involves offensive or foul language. At the same time, some interpreters, due to personal, cultural or professional reasons, feel that in situations of tension and conflict they should mediate between the parties, and not just interpret. In the case of foul language, many tend to tone down or even omit the expressions in question. In the first part of his lecture, Professor Mustapha Taibi will talk about the results of a research paper conducted in Australia in which Arabic, Chinese and Spanish interpreters had to interpret certain offensive expressions in a simulated police interrogation. In the second part, he will engage in a dialogue with students and the audience on the difference between interpreting and mediation.

    Casa Árabe is organizing this fifth session of the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 series, to be given by Mustapha Taibi, professor of translation and interpretation at the University of Western Sydney (Australia), in collaboration with the Master's Degree in Intercultural Communication, Translation and Interpretation in Public Services at the University of Alcalá de Henares. The event will be presented by Mohana Sultan, professor and coordinator of Arabic for the Master's program.

    The conference will be held in person at Casa Árabe's headquarters in Madrid, and can be watched live online on our YouTube channel.

    Mustapha Taibi
    Mustapha Taibi is a professor of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Western Sydney (Australia) and an editor of Translation & Interpreting: The International Journal of Translation and Interpreting Research. His teaching and research activities focus on translation and interpreting in the public services. His most recent books include: Translating Cultures, with David Katan (Routledge, 2021); Multicultural Health Translation, Interpreting and Communication, co-edited with Meng Ji and Ineke Crezee (Routledge, 2019); Translating for the Community (Multilingual Matters, 2018); Community Translation, co-authored with Uldis Ozolins (Bloomsbury, 2016) and New Insights into Arabic Translation and Interpreting (Multilingual Matters, 2016).
  • The Gulf States and East Asia: Rethinking Middle East Oil in the Global Economy 
    Foto: AFP

    The Gulf States and East Asia: Rethinking Middle East Oil in the Global Economy 

    January 31, 20237:00 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (c/ Alcalá, 62). 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In English and Spanish, with simultaneous translation.
    Sixth lecture of the Aula Arabe Universitaria 4 programme, by Adam Hanieh, professor at the University of Exeter.
    The Gulf states remain a critical zone of global oil production and exports, despite some recent diversification in their economies. For this reason, Adam Hanieh`s lecture, Professor of Political Economy and Global Development at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, will survey the new trajectories of the Gulf’s oil in global capitalism, focusing on the deepening interdependencies that are emerging between the Gulf states and East Asia in both crude oil exports, and crucially, downstream sectors such as petrochemicals.

    The lecture will map these interdependencies, including the new forms of corporate power that are consolidating between the two regions, and it will also ask what these developments might mean for the political economy of the Gulf states and their traditionally strong alliances with the US and Western Europe. Finally, the lecture will explore the implications of these new inter-regional linkages for the struggle against an oil-centred global economy.

    Casa Arabe is organising this sixth session of the Aula Arabe Universitaria 4 programme in collaboration with the UAM's Master's Degree in International Relations and African Studies and the Master's Degree in Political Science and Public Affairs at Saint Louis University (Madrid Campus). Representing those university programs, the session will count with the participation of Marta Íñiguez, Lecturer of Political Science and International Relations at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and Barah Mikail, Lecturer of Political Science and International Relations Programme at Saint Louis University – Madrid Campus. Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe's Education and Economics Coordinator, will moderate the lecture. 

    It will take place in Casa Árabe's auditorium in Madrid, although it can also be followed live online on our YouTube channel.

    Adam Hanieh is Professor of Political Economy and Global Development at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of International and Area Studies (IIAS) at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His current research focuses on issues of political economy, oil, and capitalism in the Middle East. His most recent book is Money, Markets, and Monarchies: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2018), which won the 2019 British International Studies Association, International Political Economy Group Book Prize. 
  • The specific nature of French Islamophobia in Western Europe

    The specific nature of French Islamophobia in Western Europe

    February 07, 20237:00 p.m.
    MADRID / ONLINE
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62) and on Casa Árabe’s YouTube channel. 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In French and Spanish with simultaneous translation.
    On Tuesday, February 7, the seventh conference in the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 program will be given in Madrid by Marwan Mohammed, a researcher at the CNRS.
    “There’s a problem with Islam” was the phrase uttered by former Socialist President François Hollande in front of two French journalists (Un président ne devrait pas dire ça..., Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme, Stock, 2016). The majority reaction on the right was to mock his belated realization, the extreme right felt that the statement fell short, while in the left wing of the Socialist Party reactions ranged from indignation to support. This multi-party consensus on the existence of a “Muslim problem” does not mean that contemporary Islamophobia lies on the same foundations among left-wing and right-wing sympathizers. On the contrary, it is only by analyzing the wind range of pillars propping up Islamophobia in France that this cross-cutting political reality can be understood.

    This conference by Marwan Mohammed, a sociologist, CNRS researcher and member of the Maurice Halbwachs Center in Paris (ENS-EHESS), will be taking a closer look at the specific nature of French Islamophobia within the context of France’s political debate and interplays.

    Casa Árabe has organized this conference within the framework of the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 event series, with the cooperation of the Master’s degree in Advanced Studies on Islam in Contemporary European Society at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). Representing this Master’s degree program, the conference will be introduced by Adil Moustaoui, a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Eastern Studies at the UCM. Moderating the session will be Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe’s Training and Economics Coordinator.

    The conference will be held in both Spanish and French at Casa Árabe’s auditorium in Madrid, with simultaneous live translation on our YouTube channel, in Spanish. The podcasts recorded during the session will later be made available in both languages.

    Marwan Mohammed is a sociologist, a researcher at the CNRS and member of the Maurice Halbwachs Center in Paris (ENS-EHESS). He teaches Sociology at Sciences Po Paris and ESSEC. His main fields of research are social, urban and racial inequalities, as well as crime and criminal justice. He has authored many articles and books, including Islamophobie. Comment les élites françaises fabriquent le “problème musulman” (Islamophobia: How French elites manufacture the ‘Muslim Problem,’ with Abdellali Hajjat, published in 2016, with an expanded version just published (La Découverte Poche, 2022), as well as an English version (University of Georgia University Press, 2022).
  • Decolonizing anthropological thinking: a Moroccan perspective
    Photo: Ziz Valley, Morocco (José Javier Martín Espartosa).

    Decolonizing anthropological thinking: a Moroccan perspective

    February 21, 20237:00 p.m.
    MADRID / ONLINE
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:00 p.m. Free admission until the auditorium's capacity is reached.
    In English and in Spanish.
    Eighth conference in the event series Aula Árabe Universitaria 4, given by Hassan Rachik, an anthropologist at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Rabat. 
    The colonial legacy left behind in the field of Anthropology includes both theoretical and ideological scars. Colonial-era anthropologists applied certain theories and concepts to the origin and development of institutions, social analysis and social structures. It is therefore helpful to be aware of how the anthropological knowledge about a specific country can be transformed into an ideology.

    In those countries which endured the experience of colonization, including Morocco, the incorporation of “local” researchers into the social sciences as of the 1960s has contributed to a transformation in the study of anthropology. Within today’s post-colonial context, understanding what the decolonization of Anthropology means, Hassan Rachik, an anthropologist and professor at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Rabat, will be giving a conference which examines the many strategies that have been implemented in order to liberate colonial ethnographic heritage from ethnocentric ideas, as well as describing the theoretical limits of such strategies.

    This is the eighth conference in the series Aula Árabe Universitaria 4, organized by Casa Árabe with the cooperation of the EUROSUD - South European Studies Master’s degree program at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) and the MA in International Politics: Sectorial and Area Studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). It will include participation by Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla, a professor in the Department of Arab and Islamic Studies at the UAM, in representation of EUROSUD - South European Studies Master’s program, and will be moderated by Olivia Orozco de la Torre, the Education and Economics Coordinator at Casa Árabe. 

    The conference will be held in both Spanish and English at Casa Árabe’s auditorium in Madrid and will be streamed live on our YouTube channel in Spanish. The podcasts recorded during the session will later be made available in both languages.

    Hassan Rachik is an anthropologist and professor at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. He has been a professor at the Hassan II University in Casablanca (1982-2021) and director of the Moroccan Centre for Social Sciences (2017-2021), as well as visiting professor at American, European and Arab universities. His early fieldwork focused on interpreting sacrificial rituals and explaining social change in rural, sedentary and nomadic environments. He has studied the use of nationalist, Amazigh and Islamist ideologies, the ways in which religions are transformed into ideologies and how ideologies permeate mainstream knowledge. He has also dealt with issues related to colonial and post-colonial anthropological knowledge. He has authored several books, including Devenir anthropologue chez soi: Interpréter sa propre culture (“Becoming a Social Anthropologist in Your Own Home: Interpreting your own culture,” Eddif Maroc, 2022), Socio-anthropologie rurale, Structure, organisation, changement dans la campagne magrébine (“Rural Socio-Anthropology: Structure, organization and change in the Maghrebi countryside,” La croisée Des Chemins, 2019); Eloge des identités molles (“In Praise of Weak Identities,” La croisée Des Chemins, 2016); L'esprit du terrain: Etudes anthropologiques au Maroc (“Spirit of the Land: Anthropological studies in Morocco,” Centre Jacques-Berque, 2016).  
  • How to draw learners of Arabic as a second language closer to Arabic culture

    How to draw learners of Arabic as a second language closer to Arabic culture

    February 28, 20237:00 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Ambassadors’ Hall (at Calle Alcalá, 62, First Floor). 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In English, with no live translation.
    Ninth conference in the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 event series, to be given by Rowaida Solaiman Khalil, a teacher at Casa Árabe’s Arabic Language Center. To be held in Madrid on Tuesday, February 28.
    Rowaida Solaiman Khalil, a teacher at Casa Árabe’s Arabic Language Center, will be giving this conference in which she introduces a few methods that can be used to increase interest in Arabic culture among students who are studying it as a second language, in a dynamic dialogue session with students. The goal is to allow them to be able to make use of these techniques to teach the language when it comes time for them to enter the workplace, highlighting the value of Arabic as one of the most widely spoken and used languages in the world and expressing its importance today in the business world.

    This is the ninth conference in the Aula Árabe Universitaria event series organized by Casa Árabe with the cooperation of the Bachelor’s degree program in Applied Modern Languages at the Universidad Nebrija. The event will include the participation of Leticia Quesada Vázquez, the director of that bachelor’s degree program, with moderation by Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe’s Training and Economics Coordinator.

    The conference will be taking place at Casa Árabe’s Hall of Ambassadors in Madrid, in English with no simultaneous translation.

    Rowaida Solaiman Khalil has a bachelor’s degree in Hispanic Philology from the School of Al-Alsun at Ain Shams University in Egypt (1994), a Master’s degree in Simultaneous Translation from the same university (1997) and a Masters degree in Advanced Spanish and Spanish-American Literature Studies from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM, 2003), She has been working as a teacher of Modern Standard Arabic for both children and adults at Casa Árabe’s Arabic Language Center since 2018, while completing her PhD studies in Spanish and Spanish-American Literature at the UAM and working as a medical interpreter. Prior to that, she taught Linguistics and Translation at the School of Al-Alsun’s Department of Hispanic Philology, and collaborated with the Institute of Islamic Studies in Madrid as a teacher of Arabic language and culture for foreigners, as well as with the Saudi Islamic Cultural Center in Madrid, teaching Arabic classes to adults.
  • Arab women narrators: challenges and realities

    March 07, 20237:00 p.m.
    IN MADRID AND ONLINE
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62) and on Casa Árabe’s YouTube channel. 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In Spanish and English with simultaneous translation.
    Tenth lecture in the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 series, to be given by Reem Bassiouney, a writer and professor at the American University of Cairo. The event will be taking place in Madrid on Tuesday, March 7.
    To mark International Women’s Day, and as part of the series of conferences Aula Árabe Universitaria, this lecture given by Egyptian writer Reem Bassiouney will explore the linguistic realities of Arab women as storytellers.

    In doing so, she will raise a series of questions about the differences between men and women in becoming and acting as narrators, as well as the challenges faced by Arab women narrators. Her discussion will be supported with examples drawn from her latest novel translated into English, “Al-Qata’i: Ibn Tulun’s City Without Walls, Georgetown University Press, 2023).

    This is the tenth conference in the Aula Árabe Universitaria series organized by Casa Árabe with the cooperation of the School of Arts & Humanities at IE University. The event will include the participation of Celia de Anca, director of the Center for Diversity in Global Management at IE University, with moderation by Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe’s Culture and International Relations Coordinator.

    The conference will be held in Casa Árabe’s auditorium in Madrid, in both Spanish and English, with simultaneous translation. You can also watch it online live on our YouTube channel, in Spanish. The podcasts recorded during the session will later be made available in both languages.

    Reem Bassiouney is a writer and novelist, as well as an expert in sociolinguistics. She heads the Department of Applied Linguistics at the American University of Cairo and edits the Routledge series of studies on language and identity. She has written numerous fictional novels, several of which have won international awards, including the King Fahd Translation Prize in 2009 for her novel “The Pistachio Seller” (2007), the 2010 Sawiris Prize for best novel for “Dr. Hanaa” (2008), the 2019-2020 Naguib Mahfouz Prize for best Egyptian novel for the “Mameluke Trilogy” (2018), and the State Award for Excellence in Literature (2022). “Dr. Hanaa” was published in Spanish by Alba Editorial as “Profesora Hanaa” in 2013.

    Bassiouney earned her PhD in Arabic Linguistics from Oxford University, where she also completed an MA on the subject. She has taught Arabic Language and Linguistics at universities in the United Kingdom and the United States, including Cambridge, Oxford and Utah. She has had many articles published on topics in Arabic Linguistics, including code-switching, language and gender, leveling, register, Arabic and advertising, linguistics and literature, and language policy in the Arab world. Her academic works include: Functions of Code-switching in Egypt (Brill, 2006), Arabic Sociolinguistics (Edinburgh University Press, 2009) and Language and Identity in Modern Egypt (Edinburgh University Press, 2014) and as an editor: Arabic and the Media (Brill, 2010). 
  • The impact of COVID-19 on the daily lives of young Tunisian women

    March 14, 20237:00 p.m.
    CORDOBA / ONLINE
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9), and on Casa Árabe’s YouTube channel. 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In Spanish and English with simultaneous translation.
    On Tuesday, March 14, forming part of the activities held to mark International Women’s Day, we will be hosting the first conference in the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 program to be held in the city of Cordoba. It will be given by Emma Murphy, a professor of political economy at Durham University.
    International organizations were quick to observe that the COVID-19 pandemic had specific and detrimental gendered impacts which exacerbated a range of pre-existing economic and social inequalities for women. This conference by Emma Murphy, a professor of political economy at Durham University, takes as its starting point a number of large-N and macro-level studies by such organizations which demonstrate how these impacts played out in Tunisia, a middle-income country where the post-independence expansion of women’s rights has come under threat in recent years from socio-economic decline, prolonged political crisis and contestation around the status and substance of Tunisian Islam.

    It then draws on a set of COVID diaries kept by six young women to explore in detail and ultimately confirm the everyday gendered impacts of the virus, it ultimately shows how these compounded existing differential pressures on women. Significantly, it shows how social norms that assign a predominantly domestic role to women were reinforced and internalized through the pandemic, shaping and even subverting women’s own attempts at resistance, with important conclusions being drawn for post-pandemic recovery policies.

    It is the first conference in this edition of the Aula Árabe Universitaria event series to be organized by Casa Árabe in Cordoba, with the cooperation of the Bachelor’s degree program in International Relations at Loyola University. The event will include the participation of María Ángeles Alaminos Hervás, a professor of International Relations at that university. Moderating the session will be Javier Rosón, Casa Árabe’s Coordinator in Cordoba.

    The conference will be hosted at Casa Árabe’s auditorium in Cordoba, in both Spanish and English, with simultaneous translation. You can also watch it live online through our YouTube channel, in Spanish. The podcasts recorded during the session will later be made available in both languages.

    Emma Murphy
    A professor of political economy in the School of Government and International Affairs of Durham University, and a member of the Institute of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Durham University.

    Her research addresses a broad spectrum of themes in political economy, including the economics of occupation and peace-building in Palestine and Israel, economic and political reforms in North Africa, gender politics, state-private sector relations,  information and communications technologies, and youth and youth policy. She has just completed a three year inter-disciplinary GCRF project working in Tunisia, Nigeria and South Africa examining youth engagement and skills acquisition within Africa’s transport sector: promoting a gender agenda towards transitions into meaningful work, as well as  a collaborative project on Youth Under Lockdown which focuses on the North East of England.

    She seeks to work at inter-disciplinary intersections and to locate the political economy of the MENA region within a broader context of global economic change. Some of her most notable recent works are: “The COVID-19 pandemic and youth in recent, historical perspective: more pressure, more precarity,” (various authors, Youth Policy, 2023); “Improving Young Women’s access to safe mobility in a low-income area of Tunis: Challenges and opportunities, pre-and-post Covid (various authors, Transportation Research Procedia, Vol. 60, 2022); Everyday mobility practices and the ethics of care: young women’s reflections on social responsibility in the time of COVID-19 in three African cities” (several authors), in Mobilities 18(1): 21-36 (2023), and the chapters titled “Europe and MENA Youth,” in Michelle Pace, Daniela Huber and Dimitris Bouris (ed.), Routledge Handbook on EU-Middle East Relations (Routledge, 2021), and “Youth activism and protest around the Mediterranean,” in Routledge handbook of Mediterranean politics, Richard Gillespie & Frédéric Volpi (Routledge, 2018). She is a co-editor of the journal Mediterranean Politics.
  • New perspectives on Christians in al-Andalus

    April 17, 20237:00 p.m.
    MADRID / ONLINE
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62) and Casa Árabe’s YouTube channel. 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In Spanish.
    Eleventh lecture of the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 program, by Cyrille Aillet, profesor of Medieval Islamic Studies at the University of Lyon.
    Since the publication of Francisco Javier Simonet’s History of the Mozarabs in Spain (1897-1903), the topic of the Christian population in Al-Andalus has given rise to extensive historical debate over their rate of conversion, degree of cultural Arabization, links with Eastern Christianity and migration throughout the Mediterranean. The attitude of Islamic society and authorities towards this minority has also been the subject of vigorous exchanges. However, a review of all available sources, whether written (mostly in Latin and Arabic) or material (epigraphic, archeological, figurative), now allows us to reflect more objectively upon the evolution of Andalusian Christianity in the Islamic world and on the Iberian Peninsula.

    The conference by Professor Cyrille Aillet, a professor of Medieval Islamic Studies at the University of Lyon, will take a closer look at some of the new challenges that have arisen involving the “Mozarabic question” and at some previously unpublished sources. 

    This will be the eleventh conference in the Aula Árabe Universitaria program, organized with the cooperation of the History degree program and Master's degree "The Medieval Iberian World: Hispania, Al Andalus and Sepharad”. Santiago Palacios Ontalva, the Vice-Rector of Undergraduate Studies and a professor of Medieval History at the UAM, will be participating on behalf of both programs. The talk will be moderated by Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe's Training and Economics Coordinator.   

    The conference will be held at Casa Árabe's auditorium in Madrid, and will be given entirely in Spanish. You can watch it live on our YouTube channel (in Spanish only), and the video recording will also be posted there at a later date.   

    Cyrille Aillet is a professor of Medieval Islamic History at the Université Lumière Lyon 2 (France). As a specialist of the Islamic West (Al-Andalus and Maghreb), his research focuses on political culture, the spread of Islam and the Arabic language among local communities and the construction of ethnic and religious identities. He first focused his research on the Mozarabs of Spain [Les Mozarabes. Islamisation, arabisation et christianisme en péninsule Ibérique (IXè-XIIè siècle), 2010]. He later directed three projects on Ibāḍism in medieval North Africa, funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, the Max van Berchem Foundation of Geneva and the Institut Universitaire de France. This resulted in a book written in collaboration with P. Cressier and S. Gilotte, Sedrata. Histoire et archéologie d'un carrefour du Sahara médiéval (Casa de Velázquez, 2017) and the publicatioon of L'ibadisme dans les sociétés de l'Islam médiéval. Modèles et interactions, Berlin-New York (De Gruyter, 2018). Last of all, he had a monograph published with the title L'archipel ibadite: une histoire des marges du Maghreb médiéval (Ciham, 2022).
  • Telling collective stories in the cinema
    Filmaker Maysoon Pachachi (Photo: Oxymoron Films Ltd.)

    Telling collective stories in the cinema

    From April 26, 2023 until April 27, 20237:00 p.m.
    MADRID, CÓRDOBA AND ONLINE
    Casa Árabe Auditoriums (at Calle Alcalá, 62 // c/ Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9) and on Casa Árabe’s YouTube channel. 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In English and Spanish, with simultaneous translation.
    On 26 and 27 April in Madrid and Cordoba, a new conference of the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 programme will be given by Maysoon Pachachi, film director and producer.
    The author's experience of both living in a big city and having been largely a documentary filmmaker inspired her desire to tell collective stories. How many individual stories, which intertwine and interweave, can end up forming a collective story. Why an individual central character and a central story can sometimes create a hierarchical structure in a film of what is more important and what is less important.

    The importance of telling collective stories in the Arab world at a time of catastrophic violence and disintegration, especially in Iraq, where he has most recently concentrated his efforts, and Syria. The struggle to tell stories of people in areas of war and violence in such a way that they are not portrayed as mere victims, but simply as people living in very difficult circumstances. How to engage an audience from the outside to imagine what they would do in those circumstances, what decisions they would make if they were that person on the screen and why this is important. It is often the women in these situations of war and violence who struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy, continuity and life. This is why she has often focused on the lives of women in the Middle East.

    In the lecture filmmaker and producer Maysoon Pachachi will present the keys to understand the collective stories in Arab cinema.

    MADRID, April 26.
    This will be the twelfth conference of the Aula Árabe Universitaria program, organized in collaboration with the Master's Degree in Film and Television at the Charles III University of Madrid (UC3M). Participating on behalf of the program will be Alejandra Val Cubero, professor of Audiovisual Communication at that University. The presentation will be moderated by Olivia Orozco, coordinator of Education and Economics at Casa Árabe.

    The conference will take place at Casa Árabe's auditorium in Madrid, and will take place in English, with simultaneous translation into Spanish. It can be followed live on our YouTube channel, in Spanish, where it will also be published at a later date. The podcasts will be available later in both languages.

    CÓRDOBA, April 27.
    This will be the second conference in Córdoba of the Aula Árabe Universitaria program, organized in collaboration with the BA in Cinema and Culture at Cordoba University. Rafael Blanco, lecturer of Art History at that university, will participate on behalf of the program. The lecture will be moderated by Javier Rosón, Coordinator of Casa Árabe in Córdoba.

    As an example of her work narrating collective stories, in the case on Iraq, her last movie Our River... Our Sky, will be screened on Friday the 28th of April at 19:00h in Casa Árabe´s Auditorium in Madrid, with a dialogue with the filmmaker.

    Maysoon Pachachi is a London-based filmmaker of Iraqi origin. She was educated in Iraq, the USA and the UK. She studied Philosophy at University College London (BA Hons) and then filmmaking at the London Film School. She was for many years a documentary and drama film editor in the UK, and has worked since 1994 as an independent documentary film director, largely making films in and about the Middle East.

    Maysoon has also taught film directing and editing in Britain and Palestine (in Jerusalem, Gaza and at Birzeit University). In 2004, with her colleague, Iraqi filmmaker, Kasim Abid, she co-founded INDEPENDENT FILM & TELEVISION COLLEGE, a free-ofcharge film-training centre in Baghdad, whose students produced 17 short documentary films, shown at festivals and screenings internationally and within Iraq at a traveling festival. 
  • The Imamate Within the European Context: Challenges and perspectives

    May 09, 20237:00 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62) and Casa Árabe’s YouTube channel. 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    In French, with simultaneous translation into Spanish.
    On Tuesday, May 9, the thirteenth and final lecture in the Aula Árabe Universitaria 4 series will be held in Madrid, given by Mustapha El-Mourabit, a member of the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad (CAME).
    Imams, in general, occupy a crucial, essential place in Muslim community life, due to the fact that they are both religious figures and social role models for the community, as well as spiritual guides. Within Muslim societies, the functions of the imam could traditionally be summarized as including the following: Leading the daily prayers, giving the Friday sermon and answering religious questions from the faithful.

    The question raised at the conference given by Professor Mustapha El-Mourabit, a member of the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad (CCME), is how these functions are played out in environments as different as those in European countries, in historical, geographical, religious and sociocultural terms.

    Though imams in general perform these tasks to the best of their abilities within the European context, El-Mourabit questions whether they do not suffer from the absence of two essential pillars in carrying out their tasks: training which allows them to have a proper feel for European society and a religious education in accordance with European societies. Throughout his discussion, he will defend the idea that the imam’s position, as well as his prerogatives, in the European context are quite complex due to a whole host of reasons which he will talk about during his presentation.

    This is the thirteenth conference in the Aula Árabe Universitaria event series organized by Casa Árabe, with the cooperation of the Master’s degree program and PhD in Religious Sciences at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Representing those programs at the event will be Mohammed Dahiri, a professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at that university. The conference will be moderated by Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe’s Training and Economics Coordinator.

    The conference will be held at the Casa Árabe Madrid Auditorium in French, with simultaneous translation into Spanish. You can also watch it live online through our YouTube channel, in Spanish. The podcasts recorded during the session will later be made available in both languages.

    Mustapha El Mourabit began his career as a university professor and later became a member of the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad, based in Rabat. He has also been a president of the “Maghareb” Center for Civilizational Studies, as well as the supervisor of the “Islamica” European Institute of Muslim Theology in Strasbourg, France.
Participating university programs

1 Bachelor’s degree in International Relations (UCM)
2 Master’s degree program on the “European Union and the Mediterranean: Historical, Cultural, Political, Economic and Social Basis”, UCM
3 Master’s degree in “International Politics: Sector and Area Studies,” UCM
4 Master’s degree in “Advanced Studies on Islam in Contemporary European Society,” UCM
5 Bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages, Universidad Nebrija
6 Bachelor’s degree program in Social and Cultural Anthropology, UAM
7 Master’s degree in “Contemporary Arab and Islamic Studies,” UAM
8 Master’s degree in “Film and Television,” UC3M
9 Master’s degree in “International Journalism,” URJC
10 Master’s degree in “International Relations and African Studies,” UAM
11 Bachelor’s degree in “Film and Culture,” UCO
12 Bachelor’s degree in “History - Medieval Archeology,” UCO
13 Master’s degree in “Political Science and Public Affairs,” Saint Louis University - Madrid Campus
14 Bachelor’s degree in International Relations, Loyola University
15 PhD program in “Science of Religions,” UCM
16 Master’s degree in “Science of Religions,” UCM
17 Master’s degree program on “The Medieval Iberian World: Hispania, Al-Andalus and Sefarad,” UAM
18 Master’s degree in “Intercultural Communication, Translation and Interpreting in Public Services,” UAH
19 Master’s degree in “EUROSUD - South European Studies,” UAM
20 Bachelor’s degree program in “Philosophy, Politics and Economics,” UAM
21 Bachelor’s Degree in History, UAM
22 Arts & Humanities (several degree programs), IE University
 
SESSIONS IN MADRID

Session 1 / Sept. 26, 2022
Hayder al-Khoei, Al-Khoei Institute
With the cooperation of the UAM Master’s degree program in Contemporary Arab and Islamic Studies

Session 2 / Oct. 20, 2022
Lola Bañón, University of Valencia
With the cooperation of the Master’s degree program in International Journalism at the URJC

Session 3 / Nov. 7, 2022
Laleh Khalili, Queen Mary University (London)
With the cooperation of the bachelor’s degree program in International Relations; the Master’s degree program on the European Union and the Mediterranean: historical, cultural, political, economic and social basis de la UCM and the bachelor’s degree program in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the UAM

Session 4 / Nov. 10, 2022
Arzu Ünal, Boğaziçi University
With the cooperation of the UAM bachelor’s degree program in Social and Cultural Anthropology

Session 5 / Jan. 17, 2023
Mustapha Taibi, University of Western Sydney (Australia)
With the cooperation of the UAH Master’s degree program in Intercultural Communication, Translation and Interpreting in Public Services

Session 6 / Jan. 31, 2023
Adam Hanieh, University of Exeter
With the cooperation of the Saint Louis University-Madrid Campus Master’s degree program in Political Science and Public Affairs

Session 7 / Feb. 7, 2023
Marwan Mohammed
With the cooperation of the UCM Master’s degree in Advanced Studies on Islam in Contemporary European Society

Session 8 / Feb. 21, 2023
Hassan Rachik, Université Hassan II, Casablanca
With the cooperation of the UAM Master’s degree program EUROSUD - South European Studies and the UCM Master’s degree in International Politics: Sector and Area Studies.

Session 9 / Feb. 28, 2023
Rowaida Solaiman Khalil, CLA - Casa Árabe
With the cooperation of the bachelor’s degree program in Applied Modern Languages at Nebrija University

Session 10 / Mar. 7, 2023 -
Reem Bassiouney, American University in Cairo
With the cooperation of the bachelor’s degree programs at the IE University’s School of Arts and Humanities

Session 11 / Apr. 17, 2023
Cyrille Aillet, Université Lumière-Lyon II
With the cooperation of the bachelor’s degree program in History and the Master’s degree in “The Medieval Iberian World: Hispania, Al-Andalus and Sefarad,” at UAM

Session 12 / April 26, 2023
Maysoon Pachachi, film director and producer
With the cooperation of the UC3M Master’s degree in Film and Television

Session 13 / - May 9, 2023
Mustapha El-Mourabit, Conseil de la communauté marocaine à l’étranger (CCME)
With the cooperation of the UCM Master’s degree program in Religion Sciences

SESSIONS IN CORDOBA

Session 1 / March 14, 2023
With the cooperation of the bachelor’s degree program in International Relations, Loyola University

Session 2 / April 27, 2023 
Maysoon Pachachi, film director and producer.
With the cooperation of the UCO bachelor’s degree program in Film and Culture

Related content

Applications now being accepted to take part in Aula Árabe Universitaria 5 (AAU5)

Undergraduate and graduate university programs that would like to submit proposed speakers and topics for the 2023-24 AAU conference series may do so here until May 8.
From March 30, 2023 until May 8, 2023 MADRID / CORDOBA