Nadia Backleh

Nadia Hajal - Backleh: PhD researcher, English and Comparative Literary Studies (2023-)

Academic Qualification:

2nd MA in Critical Theory (Distinction), University of Kent (UK).

MA in Gender, Law and Development (First Class), Birzeit University (Palestine)

Funding: Doctoral College access scholarship - Sanctuary (Warwick)

Email: Nadia.Backleh@warwick.ac.uk

PhD Research: "Migration and World Literature in the age of Global Modernity"

Situated at the nexus of literature, culture and theory, migration and labour studies, colonial/postcolonial studies, and global scholarship of empire, the project examines how world literature since the 1980s has engaged with the archetypal condition of migration in the historical conjuncture of global capitalism and late imperialism. Specifically, how fiction and non-fiction register: (1) cultures of migration, (2) predicaments of global capitalism and empire on migrant masses, and (3) modalities through which migrants seek a way out of their dire conditions. Methodologically, the research employs materialist explanatory approaches and world-literary critical frameworks to examine related scholarly debates. And it argues for the centrality of capturing the totality of global capitalist modernity and of restoring class analysis to realistically comprehend migrants' conditions apart from neoliberal mythologies as well as to concretize the potentials and limitations of the registered spaces and modalities of resistance.

Supervisors: Prof. Paulo de Medeiros, and Prof. Graeme Macdonald

Publications:

(2025). Contributing with two book reviews. In Varma, Rashmi, et al. "Palestine Book Forum." Postmodern Culture, vol. 34 no. 2, 2024. Project MUSE. Project MUSE - Palestine Book Forum

(2024). "Towards Rethinking the Politics of Global Cultures of Migration." In Navigating Borders: Perspectives on Migration and identity. London: Interdisciplinary Discourses. pp.46-68. Navigating-Borders.pdf

(2024). "The Question of Freedom, Democracy and Human Dignity at the 'End of History': Lea Ypi’s Free." Extended Review, in Romman Cultural Magazine (Arabic). سؤال الحرية والديمقراطية وكرامة الإنسان ما قبل وبعد "نهاية التاريخ"

Teaching:

University of Warwick: "Epic into Novel" (GTA programme 2024-25)
Birzeit University (2009-2023): "Introduction to Feminist Theories", "Women in Arab Society", "English Academic Writing", "Modern and Contemporary European Civilization", "Modern and Contemporary Arab Thought", "Psychology of Self and Identity", and "English Readings in Social and Human Sciences".

Conferences:

(Oct 2024). "The Socialism of the Anti-Colonial Feminist Narrations of Sahar Khalifeh: The Pre-Oslo Novels." The Warwick HRC conference Radical Traditions. University of Warwick.
(Nov 2023). "Narrating Labour Migration in Global China: Between Neoliberal and Socialist Paradigms." Historical Materialism 20th Conference. SOAS, UK.
(May 2022). "Dispossession and Labor Migration in Hsiao-Hung Pai’s Scattered Sand (2012)." In Dispossession: A symposium on Marxism, Culture, Extraction, and Enclosure. The Warwick Humanities Research Centre, University of Warwick, UK.
(Apr 2022). "Thinking Global Migration, Borders and Politics of Cultural Hybridity." In Somewhere in Between: Borders and Borderlands conference, organized by the London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, UK.

Organizing & Moderating:

Convenor, the Warwick ECLS Palestinian Literature and Culture Reading Group (PLCRG)-- an evolving initiative that started in 2024 to discuss Palestinian writings and to engage in conversation with Palestinian novelists and cultural critics. PLCRG runs twice a term and attracts the UG/PG students and staff of the department as well as of the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences departments. PLCRG cooperated with three Student Societies in discussing Emile Habibi's historical and critical irrealist novel The Pessoptimist (1974). In April 2025, we were joined by Adania Shibli as we discussed her novel Minor Detail (2020). In Oct 2025, we will be joined by Suad Amiry while discussing modernity in her novel Mother of Strangers (2022). PLCRG also invites doctoral researchers from UK universities (Kent & Lancaster, for example) to contribute to our readings of Palestinian literature. In 2024-25, PLCRG also co-convened two research seminars with the Warwick Social Theory Centre (STC), inviting Palestinian scholars to share/discuss their scholarly projects; Orouba Othman to discuss "Beyond the Time of Genocide: Social Pain as a Site of Social Action and Hope in the Gaza Strip," and Lena Meari to discuss "The Political Captivity of Palestinians During the Genocide."
Panel moderator, "Reconstructing Identity in Diaspora." Radical Traditions conference. Oct 2024. University of Warwick.
Co-Organiser, the ECLS 20th Annual PG Symposium, a one-day conference showcasing the work of the University of Warwick's postgraduates in English and Comparative Literary Studies and related disciplines, May 2024. University of Warwick.