What are you working on at the moment?
I am currently leading the al-Ard research group, an interdisciplinary initiative named after the Arabic word arḍ (أرض), meaning both ‘Earth’ and ‘land’. The term carries deep cultural and spiritual significance: in the Qur’an it refers to God’s creation, and across the Arab world, people use it also to capture the emotional and territorial attachment to land. This feeling often shapes artistic expression, political movements, and environmental practices across the region.
Through al-Ard, we explore these affective and cultural relations to land as they appear in literature, film, oral storytelling, and art, and we study how ordinary citizens express environmental care and protest ecological degradation in times of crisis. Our work seeks to develop a new analytical framework for understanding environmental care under crisis, drawing on vernacular concepts and interdisciplinary collaboration across literary, historical, and anthropological fields.
In addition, I have just finished translating into English a short story by the Emirati author Abdel Hamid Ahmad; a short, powerful account of how the oil economy impacted the Emirati youth in the 1970-80s.
How does this relate to Eco-Emotions?
My contribution to the Eco-Emotions project focuses on the emotions attached to this ‘landscapes of crisis’ (a term coined by the ecocritical scholar Serenella Iovino in relation to Italy) in the Arab region — feelings of alienation, loss, and longing, but also of care, belonging, and resistance attached to the sea, the desert, valleys, cities, rivers and so on. These affective dimensions are deeply intertwined with how people imagine and sustain their environments, particularly in times of political and ecological crisis. I am also interested in how the materialities of these landscapes (sand, mud, silt, water) affects the body and emotions of fictional characters. By analyzing literary and artistic representations of such emotions, we can better understand how ecological consciousness emerges through cultural expression.
What aspect of Eco-Emotions are you most excited about?
I am especially excited about the opportunity to collaborate with a diverse group of scholars working on literature from different regions and historical periods. In a time when literature is often treated merely as anthropological evidence, this project reaffirms its analytical power and emotional resonance.
It is also deeply inspiring to be part of a women-led, collaborative research environment. The atmosphere in our group is creative and supportive — something that feels genuinely refreshing in academia. And beyond the research, our shared research experiences, such as our group excursion to the Munch Museum in Oslo or the annual Eco-emotions conferences, have been a wonderful source of inspiration and collective reflection.
What are you currently reading for pleasure? Does it relate to Eco-Emotions?
Once you become familiar with ecocritical approaches, it’s hard not to see the environment everywhere — in every story, poem, or film. That’s also the strength of this method: it allows us to trace ecological awareness and emotional resonance across all forms of cultural expression. So yes, whatever I read or watch these days, I find it inevitably connects back to the themes of Eco-Emotions. I am currently reading Chi dice e chi tace (2024) by Chiara Valerio, a detective novel set in a small village near Rome, where the author herself was born and raised. I am fascinated by how Valerio depicts the memory of these landscapes and how the physical environment of this place shapes the identities of the characters she creates. The connection between environment and autobiographical writing fascinates me a lot and I hope to research more about for it my next book Landcapes of Crisis in the Modern Egyptian Novel and in conjunction with the Eco-Emotions research project and al-Ard research group.