I am a researcher and lecturer at the University of Bologna, where I obtained a PhD in Arabic Language and Literature in March 2025. My dissertation focused on multilingualism in Lebanese graphic narratives, combining sociolinguistic approaches with literary and visual analysis. My current research explores representations of urban transformations in contemporary Arab literature, with a particular focus on Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. In 2023, I was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oslo, following study stays in Tunis and Beirut between 2017 and 2019. Since completing my PhD, I have been invited to deliver lectures and seminars at several universities in Europe. I hold an MA and a BA in Arabic Language and Literature from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

Research Project

At OIB, I will pursue a research project provisionally entitled Cities in Transition: Urban Representations and Imaginaries in Lebanese and Saudi Contemporary Literature. The project examines how contemporary Lebanese and Saudi literature – including novels, short stories, and comics – represents urban transformations and constructs imaginaries of the city. Although Lebanon and Saudi Arabia differ significantly in their political, social, and historical trajectories, both have experienced profound urban changes over the past three decades, characterized by the erosion of public space, socio-economic segregation, the destruction or transformation of historical sites and places of memory, and the expansion of spaces shaped by luxury and consumption. These processes make the two contexts particularly productive for comparative analysis. Drawing on approaches from ecocriticism, urban studies, and literary urban studies, the project combines close reading with contextual and comparative analysis. It investigates how literary narratives produce different urban imaginaries and engage with the social, environmental, and affective dimensions of urban change. It also explores how urban transformations reshape the ways individuals and communities experience the city, and whether particular literary genres offer distinctive ways of representing and responding to these changes.