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Farouk El Maarouf

El Maarouf Farouk
El Maarouf Farouk
About me

Freshly graduated from the Center of Moroccan Cultural Studies at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, El Maarouf Farouk was awarded a fellowship at MECAM-Fellowships for the IFG "Aesthetics & Cultural Practice" (Philipps Marburg University). Currently, El Maarouf is a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture, Giessen University.

 

Dissertation working title: The Aesthetics of the Margin: Vernacular Art Communities, Curious Dealers, Unorthodox Art Consumers, and Alternative Perceptions in Contemporary Morocco.

 

My research project revolves around visual art and art communities in contemporary Morocco. It is about communities (artists, artisans, art dealers, middlemen, collectors, experts, passionate art savourers) that, unlike the typical top-notch, upscale, wealthy fine art connoisseurs, live under the line of poverty and hardly make ends meet. By focusing on the marginalized, poverty-ridden communities that dwell in hidden unsightly Moroccan markets, weekly souks, café bazaars, informal transaction locations, I attempt to come to an understanding of how such communities conceive of art in the absence of the most basic forms of decent living. Hence, my research project departs from the contemporary cultural, social and political history of Morocco to generate an adequate discussion on the meanings and implications of seeing (visualizing) in the domain of art and culture.

 

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Jörn Ahrens

 

ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0839-453X

Contact

Publications

  • Neo-Chaabi as Long-Distance Disobedience: Activist Art, Archival Aesthetics, and the Crisis of Poetic Agency (2025). The IB Tauris academic book series: Political Communication and Media Practices in the Middle East and North Africa;
    Book title: Art Against Authoritarianism in Southwest Asia and North Africa.                                                                                      co-author: Moulay Driss El Maarouf                                                                                                                                         DOI: 10.5040/9780755650682.0010
  • Conference Report on ‘Disrupted Identities in the Light of Post-Everything’ (2024).  No. 70, KULT_reports at the Gießener Graduiertenzentrum Kulturnwissenschaften (GGK).                                                                                                                     Co-authors: Morteza Azimi, Erzhena Dugarova, Sandra Engels, Anastasiia Marsheva                                                                    DOI: 10.22029/ko.2024.1479
  • Disaster-Funny in Postdigital age: Memesis and the Manifold Nature of Humour in Crisis (2024). Postdigital Science and Education, Springer. DOI: 10.1007/s42438-024-00502-3

  • Al-kamahiyatiya (Asitism): the Politics of Waiting and not Waiting for Change (2024). Journal of Critical African Studies. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.                                                                                                                                                             Co-authors: Moulay Driss El Maarouf and Taieb Belghazi. DOI:10.1080/21681392.2024.2310809

  • Farah Nuruddin. North of Dawn: Between Movement and Disrupted Identities (Book review) (2024). Volume 7 of International University of Rabat’s «Afriques en Mouvement» Journal.

  • Plagues and Religion in Morocco: A Historial Perspective (2023). Al Misbahia – Revue de la Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines Sais - Fes
    Co-authors: Samir Bouzouita and Moulay Driss El Maarouf 

  • Shikhat, Nashat and (Un)serious Theory (2023). Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 16. Brill.                                     Co-authors: Moulay Driss El Maarouf and Taieb Belghazi. DOI:10.1163/18739865-01603002

  • Treasure Hunting in Morocco and the Rise of the Echonomy (2023). Journal of Anthropological Research, University of Chicago Press for the University of University of New Mexico.

    Co-author: Moulay Driss El Maarouf. https://doi.org/10.1086/723072

  • Street art, festivity, and the politics of possession in the Moroccan urban space. Hg. von Merian Centre for Advanced Study in the Maghreb (MECAM), Tunis, MECAM Papers (2022). http://doi.org/10.25673/86247, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:5-1351414153-1807184978-13 (Translated into Arabic and French).

  • Coming to Terms with Marginal Art(ists) in Morocco (2022). Trafo Blog for Transregional Research. MECAM.                    https://trafo.hypotheses.org/33635

  • Game Without Game: (un)timely Teen Politics in Morocco (2021). Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Brill

    Co-authors: Moulay Driss El Maarouf and Taieb Belghazi. DOI:10.1163/18739865-01403006

  • The Chromatic Performance of Yassine Balbzioui (2021). Book contribution by Iwalewahaus:  Universität Bayreuth

    Book title: Yassine Balbzioui: Identity to Rent                                

    ISBN: 978-3-947902-02-6

  • City as Canvas: Street Art(ists), Walls and the City between State Patronage and Artistic Transformation (2020). Journal of Matatu, 51. Brill

    Co-author: Moulay Driss El Maarouf. DOI: 10.1163/18757421-05101009

  • Covid-19: A Critical Ontology of the Present (2020). Journal of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.

    Co-authors: Moulay Driss El Maarouf and Taieb Belghazi. DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2020.1757426

    Forthcoming 2025

    1. "‘My Mother was a Computer Fish’: Re-thinking the Human, Re-imagining the Humane in the Postdigital Turn"
    • Book chapter in Postdigital Imaginations: Critiques, Methods, and Interventions, Springer
    1. “Fractured Belonging: Diasporic Subjectivities and Gendered Radicalization in Tabish Khair’s Just Another Jihadi Jane”
    • Original publication in the European Journal of English Studies, Taylor & Francis

    Forthcoming 2026

    1. “From Lbarr’ah to Modern Scandal Industries:  Media, Shaming, and the Politics of Truth in Contemporary Morocco”
      • Original publication in the Special Issue “Scandals, Scandalization and Society in the Arab Region” in Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Brill
Presentations

1. 15/03/2025: Speaker at IMISCOE Spring Conference 2025, organized by the University for Continuing Education Krems, Department for Migration and Globalisation.
o Presentation: “Unity in Victory, Division in Departure: Nationalism and Illegal Migration in Post-Colonial Morocco.”


2. 05/02/2025: Co-lecture with Prof. Dr. Nadia Butt at Goethe University Frankfurt. Organized byTrans.Arch and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.
o Presentation: “Islam, the West, and the New Anglophone Literatures: An Introduction.”


3. 04-06/10/2024: Speaker at the international conference Political Narratives:
Interdisciplinary and Transmedial Perspectives organized by the Research Centre for the Study of Culture (RCSC), Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany
o Presentation: “From International Glory to Death Boats: The Paradoxical Narratives between National Progress and Illegal Migration in Postcolonial Morocco”


4. 23/10/2024: Guest speaker at Research Delegation Babel Initiative organized by Sciences Po Paris, France
o Presentation: "Doing Research in Morocco: Art between patronage, freedom of expression, and social precarity"


5. 24-29/06/2024: Speaker at XIV Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture, Lisnbon, Portugal
o Theme: Culture at War
o Presentation: "Beyond Violence: Coming to Grips with Childhood War Games in Post-Colonial Morocco"


6. 02-05/11/2023: Speaker at Middle East Studies Association (MESA) in Montreal, Canada 
o Panel: Time Frames: Art as an Embodied Practice of Time from an Anthropological Perspective
o Presentation: "Al-'Atara as a Marginal Community: Negotiating Art and its Practices from Below"

7. 11-14/10/2023: Speaker at the Annual Conference of the African Multiple Cluster of Excellence, Bayreuth, Germany
o Theme: Reconfiguring African Studies Through Spatialities
o Panel: Knowledge and Location
o Presentation: "Treasure Hunting and the Dynamics of the Soil"

8. 17-19/03/2023: Speaker at MECAM conference "Imagining Futures - Dealing with Disparity", Tunis, Tunisia
o Panel: "Aesthetics & Cultural Practice": Disparity and Future Models in Arab Literature and Arts
o Presentation: "Waiting, Art Practitioners, Hope, and Never-Ending Queues"


9. 22-24/06/2022: Speaker at SeSaMo 2022 conference organized by University of Naples L'Orientale, Naples, Germany
o Panel: Class, a Useful Category for Ethnography? Case Studies from Egypt and Morocco
o Presentation: "The Task of the Ethnographer: Waiting and Vernacular Art Communities as a Precarious Social category"


10. 29/04/2022: Talk at the research group "Figures of Thought, Turning Points", Marburg, Germany
o DFG, Leibniz,the Center for Near and Middle East Studies (CNMS), Phillips-Marburg University
o Presentation: "Traveling optics of the weak: invisible art practitioners and the pursuit of beauty in Morocco"


11. 20-30/03/2022: Public Presentation and workshop at Tunis University, Tunis, Tunisia
o Presentation: "Street Art, Festivity and The Politics of Possession in The Moroccan Urban Space"


12. 22/07/2021: Online public presentation organized by the Center for Near and Middle East Studies (CNMS), Phillips-Marburg University 
o Presentation: "The Aesthetics of the Margin: Vernacular Art Communities in Morocco"


13. 20-21/01/2021: Speaker at the online conference New Covid-Reality?: Philosophy's Voice In and For the Crisis, organized by COCO I 
o Presentation: "COVID-19: Knowing our Disasters Through Memesis"


14. 27-29/11/2019: Land Conference organized by the University of Cape Town 
o Presentation: "When Archeology Meets its Arc: The Soil and Its Diggers in Times of Precariousness"

Research Interests

 
  • Cultural Studies
  • Ethnography
  • Youth Activism
  • Diaspora
  • Literature

Involvement at the GCSC

Graduate Student Committee (GSC) (10/2024-10/2025)

  • Member of the Graduate Student Committee at the GCSC
  • Responsibilities: Liaising with the graduate student body, ensuring doctoral students are involved in the political, institutional, and educational organization of the GCSC

Equal Opportunities Committee (EOC) (10/2023-10/2024)

  • Member of the Equal Opportunities Committee at the GCSC
  • Achievements:
    • Updated the EOC page on the GCSC website in English and German
    • Introduced office hours for doctoral students
    • Created new posters and bookmarks to highlight EOC's presence
    • Initiated workshop organization with ETRG Migration and Decoloniality
    • Active participation in the selection committee for 2024/2025 academic year

Research Areas

  • Active member in:
    • Research Area 6 (Cultural Identities)
    • Research Area 8 (Cultures of Knowledge, Research, and Education)
  • Co-organised conference 'Disrupted Identities'
  • Organized round table during 'Knowledge - Between Discursive Construction and Cultural Contextualization' conference

Editorial

  • Forthcoming, Autumn 2025: Guest editor for Issue #19 published in the indexed, open access journal “On-Culture”.
  • Issue title: Disruption
  • The issue includes 6 double-blind peer-reviewed articles, 3 essays by expert scholars, and 3 perspectives by scholars who engage with the concept of disruption through semi-academic and artistic media

https://www.on-culture.org/submission/call-for-abstracts-archive/cfa19/

Workshops

  1. 08/02/2024: "Redefining Knowledge: an Introduction to Postcolonial and Decolonial Thinking"
  • Funded by: The International Ph.D. Program (IPP)
  • At: Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany
  1. 06/12/2022: "Muslima Theology: A Critical Analysis of Feminism in the Arab World"
  • Funded by: The International Ph.D. Program (IPP)
  • At: Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany
  1. 20/05/2022: "Coming to Terms with Qualitative Research: An Introduction to Writing Ethnography"
  • Funded by: Teaching Centre: STIBET
  • At: Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany

Conference Organization

24/05/2024: Round Table: "Decoloniality of Knowledge and Methods"

  • Part of the conference 'Knowledge - Between Discursive Construction and Cultural Contextualization'
  • Organized by GCSC and DiscourseNet
  • Co-organized and chaired the round table

4-16/05/2024: "Disrupted Identities in the light of 'Post-Everything'"

  • Co-organized by five members of Research Area 6: Cultural Identities. GGK/GCSC
  • Featured:
    • 15 individual presentations
    • 2 keynote lectures by Dr. Danielle Drozdzewski and Dr. Báyò Akómoláfé
    • Workshop by Giovana De Souza Possignolo
  • Chaired Dr. Danielle Drozdzewski's keynote and one panel

Blind Reviewing

  1. 12/06/2024: International Journal of Film and Media Arts
  • Special issue: "Street Art: A Global language within communities"
  • For Film and Media Arts Department of Lusófona University and FilmEU
  • 28/05/2024: Journal of Postdigital Science and Education, Springer
    • Manuscript: "Generative AI's Family Portraits of Whiteness: A Semiotic Postdigital Case Study"
  • 26/09/2023: Social Media and Society, Sage
    • Manuscript: "From Lockdown to Laugh-town: Interpreting Saudi's Humorous Memes during COVID-19 Crisis"

    Teaching Experience

    2023/2024: Co-teacher

    • Seminar: Gender and Genre: Arab-Anglophone Literature in a Global Context
    • Winter Semester 23/24, English Studies Institute—Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

    2022/2023: Co-teacher

    • Seminar: Islam, the West, and the New Anglophone Literatures: An Introduction
    • Winter Semester 22/23, English Studies Institute—Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany

    2022: Co-teacher

    • Seminar: Gender and Genre: Arab Anglophone Literature in a Global Context
    • Summer Semester 22, English Studies Institute—Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany
    Keywords
    Kohorte XVI IPP