People

PD Dr. Norman Saadi Nikro

Research Fellow

Phone: +49-(0)30-80307-232
PD Dr. Norman Saadi Nikro
PD Dr. Norman Saadi Nikro

Academic Work Experience

2013 - Present
Research Fellow, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.
2013 - Present
Lehrbeauftragter, English Department, University of Potsdam
2011 - 2013
Research Fellow, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. Project: Transforming Memories: Cultural Production and Personal/Public Memory in Lebanon and Morocco, funded by the German Research Council (DFG)
2009 - 2011
Lehrbeauftragter, Institut für Englische Philologie, Freie Universität Berlin
2008
January-March, Visiting Fellow, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin
2001 - 2007
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Notre Dame University, Lebanon
2000
Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Center for Behavioral Research, American University of Beirut
1999 - 2000
Tutor, General Education, American University of Beirut; Lebanese American University, Lebanon
1993 - 1998
Tutor, School of Sociology, University of New South Wales; University of Western Sydney, Australia
1993 - 1997
Australian Postgraduate Research Award, University of New South Wales

Academic Degrees

2013
Habilitation: The Fragmenting Force of Memory: Self, Literary Style, and Civil War in Lebanon. Philosophische Fakultät of the Universität Potsdam, in the Institut für Anglistik and Amerikanistik
1998
PhD in Cultural Studies, School of Sociology, University of New South Wales. Thesis: Shifting Margins, Imaginary Journeys: Writing Migrant Experience. Supervised by Maria Markus, Senior Lecturer. Thesis Examiners: Professor Zygmunt Bauman, University of Leeds; Dr. Michael Symonds, University of Western Sydney; Professor John Milfull, University of New South Wales.
1993
B.A. 1st Class Honours, School of Sociology, University of New South Wales. Thesis: Habermas and Foucault: An Ethics of Intersubjectivity. Awarded the Sol Encel Prize for best Honours thesis in the School of Sociology.

Conference-Workshop Organization

2019
Co-convenor of the international conference: Claiming and Making Muslim Worlds: Across and Between the Local and the Global. ZMO, Berlin, April 3-5.
2018
Convenor, thematic workshop: Researching Violence. ZMO, Berlin, January 17.
2015
Co-convenor of the conference: Life Writing-Writing Lives: Engaging Knowledge, Time, and Self. ZMO, Berlin, September 30 – October 2.
2013
Convenor, thematic workshop: Memory Studies. ZMO, Berlin. June 3.
2012
Convenor, workshop: Partitioning Arab Jews: Taboo Memories, Belated Traumas. ZMO, Berlin, September 25.
2012
Co-convenor, inaugural Workshop for the research project: Transforming Memories. Held in Beirut, Lebanon, March 10-17.
2010
Convenor, workshop: Working Creatively With Concepts. Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies. March 12.
2010
Convenor, workshop: Working Creatively With Concepts. Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies. December 2.
2007
Convenor, conference: Politics, Culture, and Lebanese Diaspora. At the Lebanese American University, May 24–May 26.
2003
Convenor, graduate Symposium: Literary Studies. At Notre Dame University, April 3.

Teaching

Institut für Anglistik, Universität Potsdam
2018/19
Edward Said: The Personal Dimension. Masters Seminar, Winter
2017
Photography Awry. Masters Seminar, Summer
2016/17
Memory, History, and Literary/Cultural Studies in Contemporary Australia. Masters Seminar, Winter
2016
Auto/Bio/Graphy: Written, Visual, and Aural Dissonances. Masters Seminar, Summer
2014/15
Introduction to Cultural Studies. Undergraduate Seminar, Winter
2014
Trauma and Memory in Postcolonial Literary Studies. Masters seminar, Summer.
2013/14
Edward Said. Masters seminar, Winter
Institut für Englische Philologie, Freie Universität Berlin
2010/11
Memory in Postcolonial Literature. Master seminar, Winter
2010
Transcultural Literature in Australia. Masters seminar, Summer
2009/10
Edward Said: Out-Posting Empire. Masters seminar, Winter
2009
The Public Novel. Masters seminar, Summer
Notre Dame University
2006/07
Modern American Poetry. Masters seminar, Fall
2006
Contemporary Literary Theory. Masters seminar, Spring
2006
Introduction to American Literature; English Communication. Undergraduate seminars, Spring
2005/06
Movements in Literature and Art. Masters seminar, Fall
2005/06
Nineteenth-Century Literature; History of Thought; English Communication. Undergraduate seminars, Fall
2005
History of Thought; English Communication. Undergraduate seminar, Spring
2004/05
Romantic and Victorian Literature; History of Thought; English Communication. Undergraduate seminars, Fall
2004
Major Literary Figures: Joseph Conrad. Masters seminar, Spring
2004
History of Thought; English Communication. Undergraduate seminars, Spring
2003/04
Eighteenth-Century English Literature: The Rise of the Novel. Masters seminar, Fall
2003/04
History of Thought; English Communication. Undergraduate seminars, Fall
2003
Postcolonial Literature and Theory. Masters seminar, Spring.
2003
Twentieth-Century Novel and Drama; History of Thought. Undergraduate seminars, Spring
2002/03
Introduction to Drama; Literary Criticism; History of Thought. Undergraduate seminars, Fall
2002
The Novel to 1900; History of Thought; English Communication. Undergraduate seminars, Spring
2001/02
Eighteenth-Century English Literature: The Rise of the Novel. Master seminar, Fall
2001/02
History of Thought; Religion and Social Issues; English Communication. Undergraduate seminars, Fall
Lebanese American University
2000
Cultural Studies III. Summer
2000
Cultural Studies I; Cultural Studies II. Spring
1999/2000
Cultural Studies I; History of Thought. Winter
University of Beirut
1999/2000
Civilization Sequence I (2 seminars). Winter
University of New South Wales
1997
Society and the Individual. Semester 1
1995
Developments in Eastern Europe & Australian Film and Cinema. Semester 2
1993
Beliefs, Values, and the Search for Meaning; Theories of Culture. Semester 2
University of Western Sidney
1997
Sociology II. Semester 2
1996
Sociology of the Family. Semester 1
1995
Sociology I; Sociology of the Family. Semester 1
Committee and Administrative Work
2004
Freshman Arts Advisor, and University Freshman Committee, Notre Dame University
2002
Departmental and Faculty Curriculum Committees, Notre Dame University

Publications

Monographs

2019, Milieus of ReMemory: Relationalities of Violence, Trauma, and Voice. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne.

2012, The Fragmenting Force of Memory: Self, Literary Style, and Civil War in Lebanon. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne.

1998, Shifting Margins, Imaginary Journeys: Writing Migrant Experience. PhD Dissertation.

Edited Volumes

2023, “Activated Memories in the Mashreq and Maghreb: Middle East and North Africa”. In Y. Gutman and J. Wüstenberg (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism. New York: Routledge, 317-323.

2019, Guest Co-Editor, Memories of Violence, Social Life, and Political Cultures in the Mashreq and Maghreb. Special issue of the journal Memory Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3.

2017, Co-Editor, The Social Life of Memory: Violence, Trauma, and Testimony in Lebanon and Morocco. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

2014, Guest Editor for Postcolonial Text. Special Issue: “SituatingPostcolonialTrauma Studies”. Vol 9, No 2.

2008, Guest Editor for Al Raida. Special Issue: “Arab Women Writing in English”. Vol 118–119, February. Institute of Women’s Studies in the Arab World, Lebanese American University.

1993–1998, Founding Co-Editor, Inklings: A Journal of Words and Images. Sydney, Australia.

Book Chapters

2017, “ReMemory in an Intergenerational Register: Social and Ethical Life of Testimony”. In N. S. Nikro & S. Hegasy (eds.), The Social Life of Memory: Violence, Trauma, and Testimony in Lebanon and Morocco. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

2014, “Antigone Kefala: Translating the Migratory Self”. In Helen Nickas and Vrasidas Karalis (eds.), Antigone Kefala: A Writer’s Journey. Owl Publishing, Melbourne, 162–170. Reprint.

2013, “The Arab Australian Novel: Situating Diasporic and Multicultural Literature”. In Nouri Gana (ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to the Arab Novel in English: The Politics of Anglo Arab and Arab American Literature and Culture. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 298–320.

2010, “Seductive Identifications: Parody and Power in Loubna Haikal’s Seducing MrMaclean”. In Paul Tabar (ed.), Politics, Culture and Lebanese Diaspora. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge, 348–361.

2008, “Freud, Give Yourself Up To Your Gathering”. In Analytical Lectures on Freud: The Father of Psychoanalysis. NDU Press, Louaize.

2005, “Writing Lebanese Diaspora”. In Paul Tabar (ed.), Lebanese Diaspora: History, Racism, and Belonging. LAU Press, Beirut.15–29.

2003, “Elias Khoury: Approaching Time’s Forgetfulness”. In Lorraina Pinnell (ed.), Interruptions: Essays in the Poetics/Politics of Space. Eastern Mediterranean University Press, NorthCyprus.

2002, “Driving the Valiant with Lacan”. The Millennial Lecture Series, NDU Press, Louaize.

Essays and Articles

2022, 'Nafssiya: Mediating Emotional Distances', Tohu Art Magazine.

2021, 'Immersive Soundscapes: Rana Eid's Panoptic', Jump Cut. A Review of Contemporary Media, 60.

2021, "The Invisibility of a Bomb Ship: On Michael Baers’s Invisibility Chronicles, Part One", Tohu Arts Magazine.

2019, “AnArchic Archive: Phenomenal Photographs and Multiple Exposures”Tohu, January.

2019, “Memory Within and Without the Photographic Frame: Wadad Halwani’s The Last Picture, While Crossing…” In S. Hegasy & N. S. Nikro (eds.), Memories of Violence, Social Life, and Political Cultures in the Mashreq and Maghreb. Special issue of the journal Memory Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3.

2019, “Introduction: Milieus of Memory: Within, Across, and Between the Mashreq, the Maghreb, and Europe”. In afore mentioned volume.

2019, “Editorial”. With S. Hegasy. In afore mentioned volume.

2018, “Researching Trauma: Some Methodological Considerations for the Humanities”. Middle East Topics and Arguments, Vol. 11, 17–29.

2018, “Ya ‘Ayb al-Shoum:Scenes of Auto/Bio/Graphy and Shame in Nadine Naous’s Home Sweet Home”. In Life Writing, Vol. 15. 211–226.

2017, “Introduction: Memory Between Lieu and Milieu”. With S. Hegasy, in N. S. Nikro & S. Hegasy (eds.), The Social Life of Memory: Violence, Trauma, and Testimony in Lebanon and Morocco. New York, Palgrave Macmillan 1–24.

2016, “In Proximity: Said, Marxism, and Postcolonial Studies”. In Dialog, No. 28. 1–32.

2016, “Con-Temporary Art”Tohu, April.

2015, “Inhabiting Photography: Between Medium and Mediality”. In Critical Habitations: Thinking About the Here and Now of Cultural Studies.

2014, “Introduction: Situating Postcolonial Trauma Studies”Postcolonial Text. Volume 9, No. 2.

2014, “Ethical Resonance in a Postcolonial Register: Andrew McGahan’s The White Earth”. In the Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Volume 13, No. 3.

2011, “Disrupting Dismemory: The Memoir of Jean Said Makdisi”. Published in the Working Paper series on the website of Zentrum Moderner Orient: http://www.zmo.de/publikationen/WorkingPapers/nikro_2011.pdf

2010, “Between Anaesthesia and Analepsia: Transformational Aesthetics in Jakob Roepke’s Compact Collages”. In Plurale: Zeitschrift für Denkversionen, Vol. 9. 49­–80.

2010, “Memory in a Paratactic Register: Abbas El-Zein’s Leave toRemain: A Memoir”Southerly, Vol. 70, No. 1.

2008, “Introduction” to Arab Women Writing in EnglishAl Raida, Vol 118–119, February.

2006, “David Malouf: Exploring Imperial Textuality”Postcolonial Text, Vol 2, No 2. May.

2002, “Packing my Library”. NDU Spirit, No 26, December, 56–57.

2001, “Interminable Murmurs, Art’s Estrangement”. Published in the catalogue for the East of Somewhere, Australian-Arab art exhibition, March–April, Sydney.

2001, “The Self as Stranger: Re-Viewing The Cars That Ate Paris”. Southerly, Sydney. No 1, April.

1999, “Madness Cannot Be Thought: Mahmoud Darwish”Al Shuara, Ramallah. Nos 4–5, May.

1999, “Translating Passages: Experiencing Brian Castro’s Birds of Passage”. Southerly, Sydney. No 3, June, 74–84.

1999, “Translating Passages: Experiencing Brian Castro’s Birds of Passage”. Arabic translation in Al Karmel, Ramallah. No 61, Autumn.

1998, “Antigone Kefala: Translating the Migratory Self”. Southerly, Sydney. No 1, March, 151–158.

1997, “Lispector in Translation”. Inklings: A Journal of Words and Images, Sydney. No 7.

1996, “Proust and Kefala in Dulwich Hill”. Inklings: A Journal of WordsandImages, Sydney. No 6.

 

Reviews

2018, “Returning to Accra: Between Nina Simone, Ama Ata Aidoo, Fassbinder, and the Cockettes”. Tohu, September 27.

2014, Dabashi, Hamid, The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism. In Orientalistische Literaturzeitung. Vol. 109, Nos. 4–5. 1–3.

2014, Syrine Hout, Post-War Anglophone Lebanese Fiction: Home Mattersinthe Diaspora. In Al Raida. Nos 138, 139, 140, Summer/Fall/Winter. 93–95.

2014, S. Milich, F. Pannewick & L. Tramontini (eds.), ConflictingNarratives:War, Trauma and Memory in Iraqi Culture. In Orientalistische Literaturzeitung. Vol. 109, No.3.

2013, Russell West-Pavlov, Temporalities. In the Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Volume 13, No. 1.

2013, P. Tabar, G. Noble, S. Poynting, On Being Lebanese in Australia. In Journalof Intercultural Studies, Vol 34, (1), 102–104.

2010, “Out-Posting Edward Said”. William V. Spanos, The Legacy of Edward W.Said.In Postcolonial Text, Vol. 5. No 4. 2009.

2009, Jad El Hage, The Myrtle Tree. In Southerly, Vol. 69, No. 1.

2006, S. Poynting, G. Noble, T. Tabar, J. Collins, Bin Laden in the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other. In Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol. 27, Nos 1-2. 

2001, Ghassan Hage, White Nation: Fantasies of Supremacy in a Multicultural Society. In The UTS Review, August, Sydney.

2001, William D. Hart, Edward Said and the Religious Effects of CultureDeutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient, Heft 13, February.

Reports and Peer Review Activity

2012, “Workshop Report: Transforming Memories: Cultural Production and Personal/Public Memory in Lebanon and Morocco”. With Laura Menin. H-Soz-u-kult, October.

Peer Review activity for the European Research Council, and for the journals Postcolonial Text, Humanities, Dialog,Westerly MagazineSoutherlyJournal of the Association for the Study of Australia Literatureand Journal of Genocide Research.

Conference, Symposium, and Seminar Presentations

2019, Speaker, on the panel “Closing Discussion”, conference Claiming and Making Muslim Worlds: Across and Between the Local and the Global. ZMO, Berlin, April 3–5.

2018, Paper presentation, “Between Memory and History: A Tale of Two Beiruti Tents”. World Congress for Middle Eastern Studiesconference, July 19.

2018, Chair for the panel “Cinema in the Middle East: From its Origins to the Present Day”. World Congress for Middle Eastern Studiesconference, July 19.

2018, Lecture “Researching Trauma in the Humanities”. Conference, Studying Trauma from and Interdisciplinary Perspective, Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich, March 17.

2018, Workshop, “Trauma and Testimony from an Intergenerational Perspective”. Conference, Studying Trauma from and Interdisciplinary Perspective, Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich, March 17.

2015, “Edward Said: Auto/Bio/Graphical Impulses and Critical Practice”. Lecture given at the Lebanese American University, Beirut, March 10.

2015, Introduction to the film Home Sweet Home, at the Arab Film Festival Berlin, April 12.

2014, Introduction to the film Stable Unstable, at the Arab Film Festival Berlin, March 21.

2014, “Temporalizing Contemporary Art: Between Criticism and Critique”. Lecture at Küntstlerhaus Bethanien. Berlin, May 22.

2014, “Confessional Ecstasies”. Talk given for the finissage of the exhibition Confessions, by Roey Heifetz. Berlin, May 31.

2014, “Between Memory of an Event and an Event of Memory: Transgenerational Memory in Lebanon”. Paper for the conference: Remembering (Post)Colonial Violence: Silence, Suffering & Reconciliation. German Historical Institute, London. June 19–20.

2014, “Screening the Scene: The Historicist Scope of Cultural Studies”. Presentation at the workshop: Rupture Dynamics: Interrogating the Here and Now of Cultural Studies.University of Konstanz. June 26–28.

2014, “Edward Said: Autobiography and Critical Practice”. Paper for the WOCMES conference, Ankara, August 18–22.

2014, Discussant for the panel “The Work of Persuasion”, for the conference Sermon in the City, ZMO October 30–31.

2013, “Sites of ReMemory: Violence, Trauma and Cultural Production in Lebanon”. Research Presentation for the project workshop in Rabat, April 18.

2013, Talk for the Art Exhibition Missing: An Exhibition About Absence. Berlin, June 1.

2013, Organized the panel Personal and Public Memory in Lebanon and Morocco, at the Middle East Studies Association conference in New Orleans, October 10–13.

2013, “Trauma and Testimony: ReMemory as an Intergenerational Dynamic” presented at the Middle East Studies Association conference in New Orleans, October 10–13.

2012, “Voice, Trauma, and Memory”. Presentation for the workshop Transforming Memories, Beirut, March 10.

2012, “Photograph Looking: The Work of Art Between Documentary and Performative Registers”. Lecture for the ZMO Colloquium The Impossible Aesthetic: Situating Research in Arts and Social Sciences/Humanities. ZMO, Berlin, September 27.

2012, Panel presentation and round table discussion on the discipline of cultural studies at the workshop Quo Vadis Cultural Studies. HU, Berlin, November 2.

2012, Public presentation for the screening of the film The Wedding Song, with the film’s director Karin Albou. Organised by AfricaVenir and ZMO. Berlin, December 2.

2012, “Beyond Text: Postcolonial Studies’ Concern with Material Practices”. Paper presented for the Polylog conference Comparing Postcolonial Experiences and Critiques Across Regions. Berlin, December 13.

2010, “I Confess: Memory in Lebanese Cultural Production”. Panel Presentation at the World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies Conference, Barcelona, July.

2010, “Memory Studies”. Presentation for the seminar Critical Texts and Practices, Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies, December.

2008, “Memory and Lebanese Cultural Production”. Arbeitsgesprach, ZentrumModerner Orient, March.

2007, “The Concept of Memory in Literary Studies”. NDU Brown Bag Seminar, March.

2006, “Parodic Seduction: Loubna Haikal’s Seducing Mr Maclean”. Brown Bag Forum at the Civilisation Sequence Department, American University of Beirut, May.

2006, “Freud: Give Yourself Up to Your Gathering”. Presentation at NDU, May.

2006, “Deflecting the Past: War and Memory in the work of Elias Khoury”. Lecture given at the German Orient Institute in Beirut, June.

2005, “Bin Laden in the Suburbs”. Book Launch at the Lebanese American University, May.

2005, “Elias Khoury: Commitment”. AULLA Text and the City Conference in Cairns, Australia, July.

2005, “Memory in the Novels of Elias Khoury”. IC and the Anis Makdisi Program in Literature at the American University of Beirut, November.

2002, “Riding the Valiant with Lacan”. Millennial Lecture Series at Notre Dame University, Lebanon, May.

2002, “Ameen Rihani: In Potentia”. The Anis K. Makdisi Program in Literature, the English Department at the American University of Beirut, December.

2001, “Elias Khoury and the Writing of Dispossession”. Brown Bag Seminar Series at the Center for Behavioral Research, American University of Beirut, March.

2001, “Writing Lebanese Diaspora”. Lebanese in the World Conference at the Lebanese American University, Beirut, June.

1996, “Walter Benjamin and the concept of Experience”. Postgraduate Conference in the English Department, Macquarie University, Sydney, June.

1995, “George Simmel’s “The Stranger’”. Postgraduate Symposium at the Schoolof Sociology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, November.

1994, “Adorno and Lukacs on the Essay”. Postgraduate Seminar at the Schoolof Sociology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, May.

Languages

  • English (native)
  • Arabic (native speaking; intermediate reading and writing)
  • German (intermediate speaking; intermediate reading and writing)