Combining humanities and social science approaches, this workshop intends to explore how Arab cities have been conceived, envisioned, planned in the Arab imagination. We are interested in questions such as how the imagination of the future of these cities influence reality, and vice versa, how are these imagined depictions of the city influenced by ongoing urban projects or their destruction in the region? What kind of emotions, affects, and images are associated with the urban space in these works?
MECAM workshop
Di. 24 Juni 2025 – Mi. 25 Juni 2025
Di. 24 Juni 2025 – Mi. 25 Juni 2025
Cities in the Arab Imagination: Fiction, Reality, and Futurescapes
MECAM Transregional Workshop convened by Teresa Pepe (University of Oslo/MECAM Fellow 2021) and organized by Diana Abbani (MECAM/Forum Transregionale Studien) | Tunis, 24-25 June 2025.
MECAM, c/o ISEAHT, 27 rue Florian, Borj Zouara, 1029 Tunis
With: Haikel Al-Hazgui (Writer), Vanessa Barish (Philipps University Marburg), Moncef Ben Abdeljelil (Beit Al-Hikma), Anis Ben Amor (University of Tunis), Messaouda Ben Boubaker (Writer), Hager Ben Driss (University of Tunis), Faten Bouchrara (MECAM/University of La Manouba), Rasha Chatta (Freie Universität Berlin/MECAM Fellow 2021), Nermin Elsherif (Utrecht University), Amel Guizani (MECAM Director/University of Tunis), Samia Kassab-Charfi (University of Tunis), Rached Khalifa (University of Tunis El Manar), Cyrine Kortas (MECAM Fellow/University of Gabes), Douja Mamelouk (Southern Mediterranean University Tunis), Samira Mechri (University of Tunis El Manar), Hanan Natour (Freie Universität Berlin/ EUME fellow 2025-27), Walid Soliman (Writer), Rim Triki (University of Tunis El Manar).
Program
Tuesday, 24 June 2025
09:00-09:30 Arrival of participants & Opening Remarks
Amel Guizani (MECAM Director/University of Tunis)
9.30-11.00 Panel 1 | Speculative Futures and Urban Dystopias
Chair: Diana Abbani (MECAM/Forum Transregionale Studien)
Teresa Pepe (University of Oslo/MECAM Fellow 2021) – Cities of the Future in the Arab Literary Imagination
Rasha Chatta (Freie Universität Berlin/MECAM Fellow 2021) – Fragments of Tomorrow: the Speculative Cartographies of Beirut in Comics
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break
11.30-13.00 Panel 2 | Urban Memory and Gendered Topographies
Chair: Rached Khalifa (University of Tunis El Manar)
Hanan Natour (Freie Universität Berlin/ EUME fellow) – Cities and the Construction of Memory in the Novels of Tunisian Women Writers
Hager Ben Driss (University of Tunis) – Wounded Cities: Autogeography and Urban Imagination in Fay Afaf Kanafani’s Nadia, Captive of Hope
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break
14.00-16.00 Panel 3 | Liminal Tunis: Emotion, Sacredness, and Silence
Chair: Rim Triki (University of Tunis El Manar)
Douja Mamelouk (Southern Mediterranean University Tunis) – The City of Tunis: A Landscape of Trauma and Silence
Cyrine Kortas (MECAM Fellow/University of Gabes) – A Tavern in the Old Medina: A Liminal Space Reconciling the Profane and Sacred in El-Khaldi's Awtad
Vanessa Barish (Philipps University Marburg) – The Carthage Film Festival and the Dream City Festival: Decolonial cultural practice in Tunis
16:00-16:30 Coffee Break
16:30-17:30 Keynote Lecture
Chair: Anis Ben Amor (University of Tunis El Manar)
Samia Kassab-Charfi (University of Tunis) – Migrations and Symbolic Reconstructions: Testour and the Making of a Morisco Imaginary
18:30 Dinner on a voluntary basis
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
9.30-11.00 Panel 4 | Urban Nostalgia and the Moral City
Chair: Samira Mechri (University of Tunis El Manar)
Nermin Elsherif (Utrecht University) – Against the City of Today: Virtue, Morality, and the Geographies of al-zamān al-gamīl
Diana Abbani (MECAM/Forum Transregionale Studien) – Singing the City: Satire, Family, and the Urban Imagination in Bilad al-Sham under the Mandate Period (1920s–1940s)
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break
11.30-13.00 Panel 5 | Resonant Geographies: Memory, Violence, and the Poetics of Places
Chair: Faten Bouchrara (MECAM/University of La Manouba)
Haikel Al-Hazgui (Writer) – The City: Its Violence, Voices, and Music (Using Tunis as a Case Study) (in Arabic)
Rached Khalifa (University of Tunis El Manar) – The Village as Mythopoetics of History: The Case of Ksibet in Maher Abderrahman's The Ghosts of the Vestibule?
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break
14.00-15.30 Panel 6 | Translating the City: Language, Belonging, and Representations of Urban Space in Arabic Literature (in Arabic)
Messaouda Ben Boubaker (Writer) and Walid Soliman (Writer) in conversation with Moncef Ben Abdeljelil (Beit Al-Hikma)
15:30-16:00 Coffee Break
16:00-16:30 Closing Remarks