Around the Congress > Inauguration of the Congress

The inaugural session of the 4th Congress of Middle East and Muslim Studies will take place on 28 June 2021 from 2:00 - 2:30 pm in Amphi 3.

2:00 - 2:30 pm • Speeches

• Maryline Crivello, vice-President of the Board of Directors of Aix-Marseille University
• Sylvie Wharton, provisional administrator of the Arts, Letters, Languages and Humanities Department
• Caroline Bodolec, Deputy Scientific Director, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, CNRS
  
• Myriam Catusse, Chair of the Society for Middle Eastern and Muslim Worlds Studies (SEMOMM)
• Éric Vallet, Chair of the Groupement d'Intérêt Scientifique Middle East and Muslim Worlds
  

2:30 - 3:45 pm • The speeches of the organisers and partners will be followed by an interview and exchange with Ahdaf Soueif.

Ahdaf Soueif, is an English-speaking Egyptian writer, belongs to a family of intellectuals and activists, many of whom suffered repression by the regime before 2011 and after 2013. She has made a name for herself with two major novels, In the Eye of the Sun (1993) and The Map of Love (1999, translated into French as Lady Pacha, 2000) and is also the author of collections of short stories and essays, including a diary of the Egyptian revolution: Cairo: My City, Our Revolution (2012). In 2008 she founded Palfest, an annual festival of literature in Palestine, which she runs with her son, writer and journalist Omar Robert Hamilton.