Bassem Chit Fellowship for the Study of Activism

Fadia Kiwan is Professor of Political Science and the Director General of the Arab Women Organization. She was director of the postgraduate program of political science at Saint Joseph University (USJ) in 2000, then founder of the Institute of Political Science in 2002 at the same University. As a researcher, she has published several books and hundreds of articles. She is very active in the field of advocacy for human rights, women’s rights, quality of education, democratization, and sustainable development. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Program at UNESCO since 2013. She currently serves as its Chairperson. She has been a member of the Executive Board of the National Commission for Lebanese Women since 2003. She is also the representative of Lebanon in the Permanent Council of the Francophonie.

Islah Jad (Hossneya Gad) is an Associate Professor, currently linked to Qatar University, International Affairs Department since 2014. Jad is a lecturer on gender issues and politics at the Women’s Studies Institute and Cultural Studies Institute of Birzeit University, where she was its director from 2008-2013. She is a founding member of Birzeit University’s women’s studies MA program. She has written books and papers on the role of women in politics, Palestinian women and the relationships among them, Islam, and NGOs. She is also a consultant on gender issues to the United Nations Development Programme and is co-author of the UN’s Arab Development Report on Women’s Empowerment and author of two books: Women at the Crossroads: The Palestinian Women’s Movement between Nationalism, Secularism and Islamism(2008, second edition 2013) and Palestinian Female Headed Households (2002). Jad received her PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 2004.

Mohamed Ali Marouani is Associate Professor of Economics at Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University, Deputy Director of the Research Unit “Development and Societies”, Member of the Board of the “Sorbonne Maghreb” Chair and Director of the Master’s Program “Economic Expertise in Development Policies and Projects”. He is a Research Fellow and Member of the Advisory Committee of the Economic Research Forum, Research Associate of DIAL (Paris-Dauphine University and Institute of Research for Development), Research Fellow of the Migration Institute and Secretary General of the Cercle des économistes Arabes. He is also a consultant for various international organizations, mainly the World Bank, the ILO and the UNDP. His research focuses on the impact of public policies on employment, on migration and refugees and on the determinants of structural change in the MENA region.

Nawar Al-Hassan Golley is Professor of Literary and Critical Theory and Gender and Women’s Studies at the American University of Sharjah, UAE. Al-Hassan Golley is the author of, Reading Arab Women’s Autobiographies: Shahrazad Tells her Story (Texas University Press: 2003), editor of Arab Women’s Lives Retold: Exploring Identity Through Writing (Syracuse University Press: 2007), co-editor of Mapping Arab Women’s Movements: A Century of Transformations from Within (American University in Cairo Press: 2012) and guest editor of HAWWA: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World‘s Beyond Boundaries: Exploring Arab Women’s Autobiographical Narratives (Dec. 2014). Al-Hassan Golley is the organizer of the first conference on Gender and Women’s Studies in the Arab Region (March7-9, 2012). She has organized several international conferences and has presented many papers at international conferences such as the Berkshire on the History of Women, National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA). She has published book chapters and articles in prestigious scholarly journals, and translated literary and critical works by writers such as Adonis, Edward Said, Etel Adnan, and others. In both her research and teaching, Al-Hassan Golley adopts an interdisciplinary approach drawing on her research interests in Critical and Literary Theory, Autobiography Theory, Post-Colonial Literatures and Discourses, Feminism, and Arab Women’s Writings. Al-Hassan Golley is a regular commentator on gender-related issues in the media.

Pascale Ghazaleh is an Associate Professor of History at the American University in Cairo. Ghazaleh has taught in AUC’s history department since 2005. She is an expert on Ottoman history and 19th century Egypt. Ghazaleh received her PhD in history (très honorable, félicitations du jury) from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris in June 2004. Her dissertation was titled “Généalogies patrimoniales. La constitution des fortunes urbaines: Le Caire, 1780-1830” (Patrimonial Genealogies. The Constitution of Urban Wealth: Cairo, 1780-1830). She received her MA in Arabic studies, with a specialization in Middle East history, from the American University in Cairo in 1997. Her thesis was titled “Crafts and Craftspeople in Cairo, 1750-1850.” Ghazaleh holds a BA in Political Science and a minor in Development Studies from the American University in Cairo.

Postdoctoral Affiliation: Lebanon Support

Nationality: Lebanese

Project Title: Le paysage scolaire s’invente dans les proximités

Cynthia Azzam is an architect and researcher. She has worked with reputable architecture firms. Her educational background includes an MA (professional) in architecture and an MA (research) in sciences of architecture and landscape from the Lebanese University. She also holds a PHD in Architecture in a co-tutorship between Paris-
Saclay University and the Lebanese University. Her thesis was on investigating school infrastructures in Lebanon regarding mismanagement and project distribution along the territory. She published in 2017 an article about “Lebanese Learning Landscape’s Reconstruction: Territorial Inequality and Poor Management” in the International Journal of Spaces and Urban Territory, Tunisia and is currently working on a paper titled “Recapturing Beirut for children and teenagers through school infrastructure” for Enfants, Familles, Générations, Montréal.