Dr Farah Aboubakr

Lecturer in Arabic

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 (2023-26) and Nominated Fellow (2025) for The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH). She is a member of the Edinburgh University Press Academic Committee and was most recently nominated as a council member for the British Society in Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES).

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 (Year Abroad Committee Chair) and Honours Dissertation Officer. 

 

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.

Responsibilities & affiliations

Outreach, Research & Teaching

  • (2023-26) Affiliate and Nominated Fellow (2025) for The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) (Dr Farah Aboubakr | IASH).
  • (2024-25) The external lead on The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) Artist-at-Risk Fellowship.
  • (2025-28) Member of the International Advisory Board on the ERC Project “Innovation & Documentation: Reconstructing the paradigm of transitional justice from the ground up” at Human’s Rights Centre at Ghent University (Innovation and documentation. Reconstructing the paradigm of transitional justice from the ground up – Justice Visions).
  • (2026-29) Council member in the Committee of Outreach & Pedagogy for the British Society in Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) (Our Council & Staff | BRISMES).
  • (2026- 29) BRISMES Representative in United Kingdom Council for Area Studies Associations (UKCASA).
  • (2026-29) Mentor for Academics-At-Risk Fellowship Programme: The CARA Fellowship for Palestinian Academics.
  • (2023- 26) Arabic External Examiner for Arabic Programmes at Sussex University.
  • (2026- 29) Arabic External Examiner for Arabic Programmes at Exeter University.

 

Undergraduate teaching

  • Teaching and course organising 4th-year Arabic (Arabic 4) 
  • IMES Honours Dissertation Part 1 and 2 course organiser
  • Team-taught teaching 2nd-year Arabic (Arabic 2) 
  • Guest lecturing on Reading Arabic Feminist Texts (RAFT)
  • Co-teaching Modern Arabic Literature (MAL)
  • Co-teaching Modern Arabic Literature in Translation (MALT)
  • Team-taught teaching Middle Eastern History (MMEH)
  • Co-teaching Islamic Middle Eastern Cultures (IMEC)

Postgraduate teaching

  • Teaching and course organising Arabic Portfolio with Translation Studies (Sem 1)
  • Guest lecturing Critical Readings in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (CRIMES)
  • Guest lecturing MSc in Comparative Literature: Theories and Methods of Literary Study I 
  • Guest lecturing MSc in Comparative Literature: Theories and Methods of Literary Study II
  • Co-teaching Modern Arabic Literature in Translation (MALT) for Postgraduates

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

Open for MSc and PhD supervision in the following fields in the MENA region: 

  • Arabic Studies (Arabic language, culture and modern literature)
  • Oral Literature and Folklore 
  • Translation Studies with Arabic 
  • Memory, Cultural and Identity Studies
  • Resistance and Decolonial Studies
  • Contemporary Music and Performance in the MENA
  • Digital Activism, archiving and documenting 

 

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.  

 

Dr Aboubakr has completed 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.

Keywords:

  • Cultural Translation: (media & literary)

  • Memory Studies,  Identity & Cultural Studies 

  • Modern Arabic Literature & Oral Literature 

  • Linguistics and Lexicography

Affiliated research centres

Papers delivered

  • The Revisiting of Postmemory during Ongoing Wars in the Levant in “War, Empire and Sabotage in an Age of Genocide”, BRISMES Conference (June 2026)
  • Forms of Recreation and Rememory within Futuristic and Sci-Fi Palestinian Movies, Roundtable titled, Palestinian Cinema: An Artform against War, Occupation, and Genocide in “War, Empire and Sabotage in an Age of Genocide”, BRISMES Conference (June 2026)
  • Fighting Forgetfulness: Palestinian Folktales and Memory Development Elphinstone Institute Public Lecture Series (May 2026)
  • Palestinian Performing Arts: Hi/stories of Generational Power as part of The Exchange Talks at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (June 2026)
  • Artistic Archives in Palestine: Forms of Regeneration and Defiance under the theme of A Nation At The Crossroads: Palestine Between Genocide, Statehood Recognition and Liberation Organised by The Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at The University of Edinburgh (February 2026)
  • Documentation and Archives in a State-‘less’ Context at Human’s Rights Centre at Ghent University (November 2025)
  • The Living Memory of Palestinian Music: I am Here, There and Everywhere at The Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) (August 2025).
  • Co-organiser of the symposium “The Role of Performing Arts in the Creation and Dissemination of Post-Memory in the Palestinian Colonial Context” at The University of Edinburgh & The Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities (May 2024).
  • Palestinian Artistic Scene and Memory Construction in Palestine and the Diaspora at Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin (September 2022).
  • The Artistic Scene in Palestine at Construction at Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique (GIS) on the Middle East and the Muslim World (Moyen-Orient et Mondes musulmans, MOMM) Congress (June 2021-online).
  • Memory Activism in Palestinian Performative Arts and Scholarship at The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) 2020 (postponed to July 2021- online)
  • Transgressive Voices and Modes of Translation in Palestinian Oral Literature, 3rd Annual Memory Studies Associaton at Complutense University, Madrid (June 2019).
  • Performative Arts in the West Bank and Israel: Forms of Post-memory Resistance or Passive Acceptance? “Politics and Popular Culture in the Middle East: Power and Resistance Post-2011” at University of Warwick, Coventry UK (May 2019).
  • Palestinian and Israeli Agency in Framing Palestinian Oral Literature at The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) 2017 Conference, The University of Edinburgh (June 2017).
  • Recreating and Mapping the Homeland through Storytelling in Palestinian Cinema, Thinking through the Future of Memory, Memory Studies Association, Amsterdam (November 2016).
  • Folk Religion, Language and Cultural Memory in Palestinian Folktales in 5th International Conference for Young Folklorists “Folklore of Connections, Folklore of Conflict”, Viljandi, Estonia (October 2015).
  • Palestinian Folk Narratives and Memory, Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies Research Seminars, University of Edinburgh (Spring 2015).
  • The Folktale as a Site of Regenerating Palestinian Memory in 12th Congress of International Society for Ethnology and Folklore, Zagreb (Summer 2015).
  • Translation and Para-textuality in Palestinian Narratives, Translation Studies Seminars, University of Salford (February 2011).

Books

Peer Reviewed Articles

Book Chapters

  • (2026) “Entangled Palestinian Memories Activated through Music: Sabreen and 47Soul,” in Norman Saadi Nikro and David Leupold (eds.), Mobile Histories, Activated Memories: Mnemonic Infrastructures & Contested Souths. Routledge.

  • (2025) Sumud (tran.Reselience), The Sage Encyclopedia of Refugee Studies edited by Yến Lê Espiritu, Volume 2, 706-710.

  • As part of ERC Project “Innovation & Documentation: Reconstructing the paradigm of transitional justice from the ground up” at Human’s Rights Centre at Ghent University. A collaborative reflective chapter with Ann-Marie McManus and Gauri Bahuguna, titled “Visibility, Erasure & the Politics of Documentation” (forthcoming in 2027).

  • “Remapping Palestinian Cultural Memory: Digital Resistance” in The Routledge Handbook to the Present Past: Investigating Memory, Heritage and Historical Culture in Contemporary Societies, edited by Alexandre Dessingué & Paula Hamilton, Routledge (forthcoming in 2027)

  • "The Living Memory of Palestinian Music in the Diaspora: Reem Kelani and Rasha Nahas" in Postmemory and Ongoing Trauma in the Levant, edited by Farah Aboubakr and Luisa Gandolfo with Edinburgh University Press (forthcoming in 2027).

  • “Palestinian Women’s Activism under Occupation” in A Handbook of Feminism in the Middle East and North Africa, edited by Zahia Smail Salhi, Hatoon Ajwad Al-Fassi, and Nawar Al-Hassan Golley, Cambridge University Press (forthcoming 2027/2028).

Book Reviews

Rana Barakat’s Ongoing Return: Mapping Memory and Storytelling in Palestine (2026) for the Journal of The American Historical Review (forthcoming 2026)

2023- 2026 Awarded the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) Affiliate and Nominated Fellow in 2025.

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.

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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