Nominees for BRISMES Council (2026-2029)

Farah Aboubakr

Dr Farah Aboubakr is a Lecturer in Arabic at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She has been course organising and teaching on various undergraduate and postgraduate programmes within Arabic, Translation and Middle Eastern Studies. Coming from an interdisciplinary background, Farah’s research is actively engaged within Palestine Studies, Arabic Literature and Popular Culture, Post-colonial, Memory, and Cultural Studies. Her research has been funded by The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), Palestinian American Research Centre (PARC) and the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL).

Her publications include The Folktales of Palestine: Cultural Identity, Memory and the Politics of Storytelling (2019). She has recently completed her CBRL-funded project, Palestinian Transgressive Voices: Cultural Memory and Performative Arts in the Diaspora and Palestine (2023-25), and is currently the co-editor with Luisa Gandolfo of the edited volume Postmemory and Ongoing Trauma in the Levant (forthcoming).

Farah has also led on various engagement and outreach roles as part of academic activism and curriculum decolonisation within UoE and primary schools in Edinburgh. Most recently, she is one of the members working on establishing a Palestine Studies Network in preparation to the creation of a Palestine Studies Centre at UoE, and following one of the key recommendations of The Race Review (2025). She is also part of ongoing discussions to establish a Memory Studies Network in Scotland. Additionally, Farah is a member of Edinburgh University Press Academic Committee. With her diverse academic and scholarly portfolio, and as a leading voice in the field of memory studies in the SWANA context, she would be an invaluable addition to the Council as she will bring her innovative, critical drive to all BRISMES roles and activities.