Noura Chalati
Affiliated Researcher
Noura Chalati is a PhD candidate at Freie Universität in Berlin and a research fellow at ZMO in the “Learning Intelligence” research group. Her PhD project is about East German and Syrian intelligence relations (MfS-Mukhabarat) during the Cold War. She is a political scientist focused on International Political Sociology perspectives and the Levant (mainly Syria). She obtained her postgraduate degree in “International Relations of the Middle East” from the University of Edinburgh in 2019.
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Positions
Education
Awards
Publications
2022 “Transnationale Geheimdienstbeziehungen: Eine feldtheoretische Analyse des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit (MfS) und der syrischen Geheimdienste während des Kalten Krieges.” ZIB (Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen) 29 (2): 82-101. https://doi.org/10.5771/0946-7165-2022-2-82.
2022 (with Sophia Hoffmann and Ali Dogan) “Rethinking intelligence practices and processes: three sociological concepts for the study of intelligence,” Intelligence and National Security (open access).
2020 "Illness as Metaphor and Reality in Syria," Middle East Report 297 (Winter).
2018 “Women as the Standard-Bearers of National Identity in Rojava.” The Leviathan Journal of Politics and International Relations (Pride) 8(3): 23-24.
Outreach and Knowledge Transfer
09/2023 Participation in Leibniz event "Book a Scientist".
12/2022 "Deutschlands Rolle im syrischen Folterapparat," Interview mit Ronen Steinke für einen Artikel in der Süddeutschen Zeitung.
06/2022 "Der Austausch ging in beide Richtungen," Interview mit Jannis Hagmann für das Leibniz Magazin über Interaktionen der Geheimdienste der DDR und Syriens.
04/2022 "Töten für Assad - Massenmord auf Video," Interview für Dokumentation von Report Mainz über den syrischen Militärgeheimdienst.
02/2022 "MfS und Mukhabarat,“ Interview für Podcast des Projekts Geruch der Diktatur.
12/2021 "Der Geruch des Archivs," eine Reflexion über die Archivarbeit im Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv und Diktaturerfahrungen für das Projekt Geruch der Diktatur.
09/2021 Background Interview for Al-Jazeera documentary "The Trial of Anwar Raslan".
04/2021 "Factory of Fear," Interview for Podcast "Branch 251" on the Syrian Mukhabarat's historic ties with Nazi officers and the East German Stasi.
03/2021 Participation in Leibniz event "Book a Scientist".
Teaching
Winter Semester 2022/23 University of Hamburg, BA Middle Eastern Studies, Seminar: Geschichte und Politik Syriens im 20. Jahrhundert/ Syrian History and Politics in the 20th century.
Winter Semester 2022/23 University of Hamburg, BA Middle Eastern Studies/ MA Manuscript Cultures, Seminar: Nur verstaubte Archive? Archivpolitik, Archivarbeit als Methode und arabischsprachige Quellenlektüre/ Just dusty archives? Politics of the archive, archival research as method, and working with Arabic-language sources.
Summer Semester 2022 FU Berlin, BA Political Science, Seminar: Introduction to Intelligence Studies with a focus on the Middle East (together with Ali Dogan).
Workshops and Conferences
09/2023 EISA PEC Conference, Potsdam, "The Politics of Leaks and "Displaced Archives": Syrian Security and Intelligence Documents" in the section Documents of Security.
06/2023 Workshop at King’s College London on “Trust and mistrust in intelligence collaboration on European security and defence”, presentation with Ali Dogan on: “Trust in transnational intelligence relations: a political-sociological approach.”
06/2023 Discussant in Panel on “Syriens Perspektive nach der Rückkehr in die Arabische Liga“, organised by Deutsches Orient Institut and Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung.
09/2022 EISA PEC Conference, Athens, "An IPS approach to Syrian intelligence (during the Cold War)." in the section New Intelligence Studies.
07/2022 International Intelligence History Association (IIHA) Conference, Akademie für Politische Bildung Tutzing, "The Syrian Mukhabarat (& the Stasi) – Practices of Surveillance and Social Control during the Cold War."
12/2021 MESA Annual Meeting [online], "The Syrian surveillance architecture and the Stasi - Do intelligence agencies learn practices of social control from each other?"
09/2021 EISA PEC Conference, Malta [online], "The Syrian field of intelligence during the Cold War and its transnational relations." in the section The Everyday Life of Intelligence.
09/2021 DAVO Kongress, University of Osnabrück, "The Syrian Mukhabarat (& the Stasi) – Practices of Surveillance and Social Control during the Cold War."
10/2020 Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft (DVPW), Freiburg [online], "Ideology and Intelligence Relations: The case of the East German Ministry for State Security and the Syrian Mukhabarat apparatus, 1960-1990."
02/2020 Theorienworkshop der DGA-Nachwuchsgruppe, Bochum, "Theorien und Paradigmen in den Internationalen Beziehungen."
Memberships
European International Studies Association (EISA)
Women's Intelligence Network (WIN)
Middle East Studies Association (MESA)
Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient (DAVO)
Languages
- German: native speaker
- English: full fluency (C2)
- Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic and Levantine Dialect): advanced proficiency (C1)
- French: advanced proficiency (C1)