NELK

Nuha Askar, M.A.

Doctoral Researcher

Nuha Askar is a PhD candidate at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. She studied Anglophone Literatures, Cultures and Media at Goethe University and graduated with a Master degree in 2019. Her dissertation examines internal struggles in the Middle East mediated in contemporary anglophone narratives of Iraq and Syria. Her fully funded project is entitled “Beyond the Single Story of the ‘Arab Nation’: Narrating Internal Dissent in Anglophone Middle Eastern Literature” and supervised by Prof Dr Frank Schulze-Engler.

Research Interests

  • Anglophone Literary and Cultural Studies
  • Postcolonial Studies/Theory
  • Middle Eastern Studies
  • Nationalism Studies

Academic Experience

  • Organizer and moderator of the Anglophone Arab Literary Studies (AALS) Colloquium at Goethe University in the WiSe 2022/3. The project is funded by Villigst Studienwerk.
  • Participant in a lecture entitled “The ‘First True Iraqi Citizen’: The Pitfalls of the Nation in Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad” in virtual lecture series on Iraq issues, German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) of Hamburg, Germany, April - July 2023 (forthcoming)

Presentations

  • “‘Tell Me a Story’: Queer Narratives and Countercultural Memories in Ahmad Danny Ramadan’s The Clothesline Swing”, The Middle East Studies Association (MESA)’s 57th Annual Meeting, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 2-5 November 2023
  • “‘Tell Me a Story’: Queer Narratives Debunking National Politics”, Writing the Self / Writing the English-Speaking Worlds, International Conference on Life Writing and Politics, Lille, University of Lille, France, 12-13 October 2023
  • “The DeformNation Theory: The Fragmentation of the Nation in the Narratives of Postcolonial Nation-States”, The Middle East Studies Association (MESA)’s 56th annual meeting, Denver, Colorado, USA, 1-4 Dec 2022
  • “The ‘First True Iraqi Citizen’: The Pitfalls of the Nation in Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad”, Iraq Twenty Years After the US Invasion: Memory Politics, Governance and Protests, International Conference, German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) of Hamburg, Germany, 29-31 March 2023
  • “Struggle within the Nation: Language as a Rebel in Postcolonial Nation-States”, International Conference on Postcolonial Studies: “Trajectories and Transitions of (Post)colonialism”, London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (LCIR) 2022, Birkbeck, University of London, England , 10-11 September 2022
  • “Who is the Enemy? Disassembling the Postcolonial Binaries by Self-reflexivity in What Strange Paradise”, Contested Solidarities: Agency and Victimhood in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, 32nd Annual Conference of GAPS, Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 26-29 May 2022
  • “Unsettling Identities on Refugee Routes”, An Interdisciplinary Conference on “Displacement, Emplacement, and Migration”, Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg, Germany, 24-26 June 2022
  • “Transgressive Modes of Border Crossing”, The Ruptured Commons, ACLALS Triennial Conference 2022, Ryerson University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 11-15 July 2022
  • “Dissemination: an Act of Rebellion and Breaking Boundaries in Rawi Hage’s Beirut Hellfire Society”, Breaking Boundaries: Reimagining Borders in Postcolonial and Migrant Studies, 1st Manchester Met’s Centre For Migration And Postcolonial Studies (Maps), Manchester Metropolitan University, 03.Sep 2021

Selected Publications in Newspapers and Extracurricular Activities

  • Guest Speaker in a lecture entitled “Selective Silencing” in the 1st annual conference of the (DFG) Research Training Group “connect exclude”: “speak” („anschließen ausschließen“: „Sprechen“) at Köln University, 1-3.12. 2022
  • Three literary Texts were published in the Butzbacher Zeitung, Butzbach, Germany: “The Agony of Choice”, “Would He Manage To?” & “Between Here and There: How Much Do We Learn from Global Stories?”, 13.03.2021, 24.02.2021 & 31.12.2020 respectively
  • Member of the jury in the committee (B) for the selection of refugee students at Villigst Studienwerk (Villigst Academic Foundation), 04.2019 - 07.2019
  • Guest Speaker at the aeWorldwide Seminar “Self-determination and Tales of Refugees” at Goethe University, 12.04.2018
  • Three literary Texts were published in the Wetterauer Zeitung, Bad Nauheim, Germany: “From Loss and Hope”, “The Desire to Belong”, “Crossing the Borders”, 23.12, 24.09 & 04.05. 2016 respectively
  • Guest speaker for three years in the forum “Intercultural Weeks”, organised by the specialist service “Women and Equal Opportunities” of the Women's Center Wetterau, Friedberg, Germany in 2016, 2017 & 2019
  • Guest speaker in the “Share your Story” forum, organised by students at Gießen University, Germany, 14.05.2016
  • “Crossing the Borders” text was nominated among the best ten-entries in worldmerit.org “share-your-story” Contest, June 2015


Awards/Scholarships/Recognitions

  • Doctoral Scholarship by Villigst Studienwerk since April 2021
  • Approval of funding her PhD project by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) in September 2021
  • Franz Adickes Stiftungsfond Award for Early Career Researchers for hiring research assistant regulated through GRADE, Goethe University, 2021
  • Master Scholarship by Villigst Studienwerk (2018-2019)
  • First prize winner in the “Nestby Writing Contest for the Excellence in the Study of   
     American Literature” organised by the American Cultural Center of the American
     Embassy in Syria in May 2001.

Professional Memberships

  • GAPS (Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies)
  • MESA (Middle Eastern Studies Association) (forthcoming)
  • EACLALS (European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies) (forthcoming)
  • GRADE (Goethe University)

Contact

n.askar@em.uni-frankfurt.de