Dr Farah Aboubakr

Lecturer in Arabic, IASH Affiliate (2023-25)

Biography

Background

Dr Farah Aboubakr currently holds the post of Lecturer in Arabic at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and has been an Affiliate (2023-25) and Nominated Fellow (2025) for the The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH). Most recently, she has become a member in the Academic Committee of Edinburgh University Press (EUP).

Dr Aboubakr joined the University of Edinburgh in 2013 as a Teaching Fellow in Arabic; a year later attained her PhD degree in Translation and Intercultural Studies from the University of Manchester (December 2014).  She has been involved in course organisation, teaching (language and discursive modules) as well as developing materials on Arabic PG/UG programmes. She took the role of Course Organiser/ Developer of the MSc Advanced Arabic between 2013 and 2020 and contributed towards the teaching and development of MSc in Arab World Studies, MSc in International Relations of the Middle East with Arabic (IRMEwA), and MSc Translation Studies (Arabic Portfolio). Dr Aboubakr has been teaching on discursive and discursive language-based postgraduate and undergraduate courses, such as: Advanced Research Skills in Arabic, Critical Readings in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Modern Arabic Literature,  Modern Middle Eastern History , Islamic and Middle Eastern Culture, Research Methods and Problems in IMES, Reading Arab Feminist Texts, and MSc in Comparative Literature.

She has also held a number of roles since she joined IMES, such as Student Exchange Officer, Career Adviser/ Officer for the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Postgraduate and Undergraduate Year Abroad Coordinator and Year Abroad Committee Chair. 

 

Qualifications

  • Ph.D. (2014): “The Palestinian Folktale as a site of Framing Palestinian Collective Memory and National Identity” - The Department of Translation & Intercultural Studies - The University of Manchester.
  • M.A. (Distinction) 2004: Translation and Interpreting (Arabic-English-Arabic) - The University of Salford. Dissertation entitled: “The Translation of Wordplay, Irony and Satire in the Pessoptimist by Emil Habiby.
  • B.A.(Hons) 2002: English Language and Literature - Mohammed V University, Morocco.

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Research summary

Throughout her PhD career and following obtaining her degree, Dr Farah Aboubakr's teaching and research portfolios have expanded in interdisciplinary subject areas combining theoretical frameworks from Arabic language and literature, memory studies, translation studies, postcolonial studies, and popular culture. Her journal article, “Peasantry in Palestinian Folktales: Sites of Memory, Homeland and Collectivity” (2017) and monograph The Folktales of Palestine: Cultural Identity, Memory and the Politics of Storytelling (2019) have contributed to the field of cultural studies in conflict zones at a time when there is less scholarship engaging with both memory studies and artistic oral Palestinian productions. Her monograph is the first scholarly work to consider the value of Palestinian folktales (both Arabic and their translations) in reframing the development of cultural identity and post-memory. The study presents new insights into the transcultural shifting position of folktales while also analysing the agency of women storytellers within cultural and social movement studies. 

Keywords:

  • Cultural Translation: (media & literary)

  • Memory Studies,  Identity & Cultural Studies 

  • Modern Arabic Literature & Oral Literature 

  • Linguistics and Lexicography

Current research interests

Dr Aboubakr is currently completing her project, Palestinian Transgressive Voices: Cultural Memory and Performative Arts in the Diaspora and Palestine (2023-25). Funded by The Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL), the project’s key objective is to bring together intersecting voices of performers in Palestine and the diaspora around the themes of exile, nationhood, post-memory and notions of identity and the homeland. The research presents an in-depth understanding of the Palestinian performative art scene by unfolding the mechanisms of memory work, production and reception of Palestinian oral and musical performances. An area of research seldom analysed from multi-faceted and interdisciplinary models, the research offers a novel and needed approach in the advancement of performative arts in conflict zones.

Affiliated research centres

Completed Publications

Forthcoming Publications

  • Resilience, Sumud (transl. steadfast) in Yen Le Espiritu's The SAGE Encyclopaedia of Refugee Studies (due to appear September 2025).
  • “Entangled Palestinian Memories Activated through Music: Sabreen and 47Soul” in Mobile Histories, Activated Memories: Ruins, Mediums, Artefacts, and Archival Repositories, edited by Norman Saadi Nikro and David Leuopold in Routledge Transdisciplinary Souths Series (due to appear in 2026).
  • Review of Palestinian Rituals of Identity: The Prophet Moses Festival in Jerusalem, 1850-1948 by Awad Halabi. The Journal of American Folklore (due to appear Sep/Oct 2025).

2023- 2025 Awarded the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) Affiliate and fellow status.

2024- Awarded Susan Manning Workshop Fund by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) towards organising a symposium at the University of Edinburgh on “The Role of Performing Arts in the Creation and Dissemination of Post-Memory in the Palestinian Colonial Context”

2022- Awarded Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) Visiting Research Fellowship in Berlin.

2022- Awarded Birzeit University Visiting Research Fellowship in collaboration with The Palestinian American Research Centre (PARC).

2021- Awarded The Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) research funds for my project Palestinian Transgressive Voices: Cultural Memory and Performative Arts in the Diaspora and Palestine.

2010 – Fellowship research grant by Palestinian Association Research Centre (PARC) for research entitled: The Folktale as a Site of Framing Palestinian Collective Memory and Identity in Speak, Bird, Speak Again (1989), Qul Ya Tayer (2001).

2008 - Awarded full-bursary by The University of Manchester, entitled Graduate Teaching Fellowship, to study towards a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies.

2005- Awarded The Karim Rida Said Foundation Scholarship towards a Master's Degree in Translation and Interpreting at Salford University study a Master's at Salford University.

Nominations 

  • Regular nomination for the EUSA Teaching Award (Student-led Teaching Award) in the categories of Outstanding Course and/or Teacher of the Year.
  • Dr Aboubakr's book, The Folktales of Palestine: Cultural Identity, Memory and the Politics of Storytelling (2019) was nominated in 2019 for Palestine Book Award.
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