Intellectual and Discursive Battles over Palestine              2025 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE   

An international Conference | 4-5 October 2025 | University of Macedonia | Thessaloniki - Greece

Abdelnabi, Rasmieyh

Institute for Palestine Studies

Dr. Rasmieyh Abdelnabi recently finished her PhD in sociology at George Mason University (Virginia, USA). The title of her dissertation was, 'The Feminization of Resistance, Social Reproduction, and Palestinian Embroidery: Women's Work Beyond Surviving and Toward Thriving.' She is an adjunct professor, writer, researcher, and editor based in Jerusalem. Her research covers Palestine, gender, state violence, political repression/suppression, women’s work, social reproduction, cultural continuity, and political economy. She has published manuscripts on gender, state violence, and Jerusalem.

Aloni, Udi 

Udi Aloni is an Israeli-American filmmaker, writer, and visual artist whose career is deeply rooted in the struggle for justice and peace in the Middle East. Beginning as a painter and founder of the radical Bugrashov Gallery in Tel Aviv, he turned to film to address questions of politics, theology, and history. His acclaimed films — including Local Angel, Forgiveness, Art/Violence, and Junction 48 (Berlinale Audience Award, 2016) — have been shown at leading festivals around the world. Aloni served as head of the cinema department at the Freedom Theater in the Jenin Refugee Camp, where he worked with Palestinian youth to create art out of resistance. He has written extensively on binationalism and Jewish–Palestinian solidarity and is the author of What Does a Jew Want: On Binationalism and Other Spectres. Dividing his time between Tel Aviv, Berlin, and New York, he remains a passionate advocate for art as a form of political intervention and a path toward peace.

Alasah, Eman

Birzeit University

Dr. Eman Alasah is a Palestinian scholar specialising in postcolonial and cultural studies. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and French Literature from Bethlehem University in Palestine, an MA in Cultural and Literary Studies from Durham University (UK), and a PhD in Postcolonial Studies from Northumbria Newcastle University (UK). Her master's research examined the cultural memory of genocide in Germany and Turkey, while her doctoral dissertation analysed autobiographical narratives and political writings in post-Oslo Palestine, with a particular focus on the complex colonial dynamics introduced by the Oslo Accords. She currently serves as a part-time Assistant Professor at both the Arab American University and Birzeit University in Ramallah, Palestine.

Albatran, Khalil

Khalil Albattran, Independent Artist and Founder of Mushtabik Project

Khalil Al-Battran is a Palestinian theater director, performer, and music creator. He leads the Mushtabik project, exploring contemporary political theater and developing new artistic methods reflecting the realities of occupation. His work blends live performance, music, visual art, and bodily experimentation, seeing art as a tool for resistance and collective liberation. Khalil focuses on the body as a site of memory and resistance and participates in workshops and performances locally and internationally. His practice combines research and creativity to confront oppression through performing arts and expand political theater's engagement with social and human issues.

Amer, Mohammed Wesam

University of Cambridge

Dr Wesam Amer is a CARA (the Council for At-Risk Academics) fellow and visiting researcher at Cambridge. Since 2020, Dr Amer has been Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Languages at Gaza University. He was a Fulbright scholar and researcher at Harvard University's Centre for Middle Eastern Studies in 2022. He was a Marie Curie fellow at Newcastle University from 2017 to 2020. Dr. Amer obtained his Ph.D. from Hamburg University in 2015. His interests in teaching and research center around political communication, violent language, warfare, and contemporary geopolitics, with a specific focus on terrorism, security, and radicalization.

Amoruso, Francesco

Newcastle University

Francesco Amoruso is a Lecturer in Political Geography at Newcastle University. Prior to his current position, he has held two postdoctoral positions at the University of Exeter and Tampere University. He has also lectured at the universities of Edinburgh, Boston, and Bath. His research interests include urban development and counterinsurgency in the Middle East, the political economy of development in the West Bank, decolonisation and counterrevolution, and the politics of archives and knowledge production on Palestine. 

Badran, Yazan
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, DESIRE

Yazan Badran is an Assistant Professor in international media and communication studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and a researcher at the Echo research group. His research focuses on the intersection between media, journalism and politics particularly in the MENA region and within its exilic and diasporic communities. He was previously a Junior Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) (2022-2025) as well as a PhD fellow of the FWO (2016-2020). He teaches in the BSc of Social Sciences and the MSc Communication Studies. He has a MSc in Communication Studies from the VUB (2015), and holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Science from the Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan (2013). He has been a visiting scholar at different institutions including Kadir Has University (Istanbul, Turkey), and Centre d'Etudes Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT–Tunis, Tunisia). 

Carras, Iannis
University of Macedonia

Iannis Carras is Associate Professor of Balkan and European History at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki. He previously served as Senior Lecturer at the IES EU Center and taught at Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg and the International Hellenic University in Thessaloniki. He earned his doctorate in 2011 from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, with a dissertation titled Trade and Brotherhood: Balkan Merchants in Russia, 1700–1774. His research focuses  on Balkan communities in Ukraine and the Black Sea region, trade networks, and the intersection of religion and the Enlightenment.

Charitos, Panos 

Panos Charitos is a journalist and documentarist. He has reported extensively from conflict zones and political crises across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. As a freelancer, he covered the Chechen war, the Georgia–Abkhazia conflict, the civil war in Zaire (now the DRC), and the Albania pyramid scandal, where he established the Athens News Agency’s first Tirana office. As a war correspondent, he reported on major conflicts from the Intifada and the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya to wars in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, as well as the battle for Mosul. His work has included collaborations with ERT, DW, the BBC, and ABC Australia. 

Christofis, Nikos

University of Thessaly

Nikos Christofis is assistant professor of International Cultural Relations at the University of Thessaly in Volos, Greece. He worked previously in several universities in Cyprus, Turkey, and China. He published a monograph, 16 edited volumes, and more than 70 journal articles and book chapters in English, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, and Chinese. He is the book series editor of Mediterranean Politics (Transnational Press) and New Directions in Turkish Studies (Berghahn).

Coletsou, Angeliki

Ionian University

Angeliki Coletsou is a PhD candidate at Ionian University in Greece and a member of the German Middle East Studies Association for Contemporary Research and Documentation (DAVO). Her research interests include critical discourse analysis in the Middle East, media and representation studies, postmodern racist discourse, populism in Europe & the US.

Dagan, Yaar

Bournemouth University

Dr Yaar Dagan is Lecturer in International Law and Programme Leader for LLB Law at Bournemouth University, UK. He co-founded the BU Research Network for MENA Studies and is affiliated with the Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice. Yaar serves as a visiting lecturer at Lviv Polytechnic University and was recently a visiting scholar at the University of Brighton and Sussex University. He holds a PhD in Law from Keele University and both an LLM and LLB from the Haim Striks School of Law. Admitted to the Israeli Bar, He represented Palestinians before the Israeli Supreme Court in human rights petitions. He has also worked with NGOs including Arous Elbanar and HIAS, providing legal aid to refugees, asylum seekers, and marginalised communities from over 20 countries.

Damar, Erdem

Başkent University

Erdem Damar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Başkent University, Ankara, Türkiye. His research interests lie primarily in the fields of contemporary theories of democracy, Turkish political history, and political sociology. His recent publications focus on the impact of the post-pandemic developments Türkiye's labour regime; the impediments of civilisationist modes of ideologies on Turkish democracy; and the role of affect and emotions on the mobilisation secular modes of identities in Türkiye in the post-1990s. He is currently conducting archival research on the construction of the meaning of secularism in Türkiye's centre-left in the post-1960s.

Englert, Sai

Leiden University

Sai Englert is a lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is the author of 'Settler Colonialism: an Introduction' and the co-editor of 'From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine'.

Feldman, Ilana

George Washington University

Ilana Feldman is Professor of Anthropology, History, and International Affairs at George Washington University. Her research focuses on the Palestinian experience, both inside and outside of historic Palestine, examining practices of government, humanitarianism, policing, displacement, and citizenship. She is the author of Governing Gaza: Bureaucracy, Authority, and the Work of Rule, 1917-67; Police Encounters: Security and Surveillance in Gaza under Egyptian Rule; Life Lived in Relief: Humanitarian Predicaments and Palestinian Refugee Politics; and co-editor (with Miriam Ticktin) of In the Name of Humanity: The Government of Threat and Care.

Karakatsanis, Leonidas
University of Macedonia, Laboratory of International Politics and Legal Studies (POLIS)

Leonidas Karakatsanis is Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki, Greece) and Honorary Fellow of the British Institute at Ankara. He holds a PhD from the University of Essex. His research focuses on identity politics, nationalism, minority rights, civil society, peace & reconciliation, with a regional expertise in Turkey, the Caucasus,, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. He is the author of Turkish-Greek Relations: Rapprochement, Civil Society and the Politics of Friendship (Routledge, 2014), and co-editor of the volumes The Politics of Culture in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus: Performing the Left since the Sixties (Routledge, 2017) and Bordered Places, Bounded Times: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives on Turkey (BIAA, 2017). His current research examines comparative approaches to reconciliation and peace processes across the Caucasus, Balkans, Middle East, and Mediterranean

Karathanasis, Pafsanias

Independent researcher

Pafsanias Karathanasis is a social anthropologist (PhD). His main research interests include anthropology of space and place, visual culture, political anthropology, and migration, while he is specifically interested in urban cultures, political and cultural grassroots initiatives in urban settings, and contested landscapes in cities and in borderlands. He has done research on urban practices such as graffiti, street art, public art and political activism, in Athens, Mytilene the capital of the island of Lesvos, and the divided capital of Cyprus, Nicosia, where he has worked with grassroots initiatives and groups of activists and artists. He is the author of two books on graffiti, street art and political interventions, in Greek and academic articles in Greek and English.

Koulianou, Angeliki

Université Paris Cité

Angeliki Koulianou is currently pursuing a master's degree in Semiotics and Communication at Paris Cité University. She graduated from the Department of Language and Intercultural Studies at the University of Thessaly in 2024. In her bachelor’s thesis, she explored the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a multimodal critical discourse analysis of political cartoons on X (Twitter). She is currently research assistant in the project “Rhizo-Eduscapes – A rhizomatic cartography of non-formal refugee education: Exploring and transforming eduscapes in hosting centers for unaccompanied minors” (2025–2028, HFRI) and a member of the “Volos Linguistic Landscape Research Group” since 2023.

Kvindesland, Erik

University of Oxford

Dr. Kvindesland is a transnational historian of the Middle East. His research has focused on Jewish history in the Persian Gulf, and the Gulf’s historical relationship to Zionism and Palestine.

Kourgiotis, Panos
University of Macedonia

Panos Kourgiotis is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Balkan Slavic and Oriental Studies, at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. He studied Mediterranean Studies, Political Sciences and Modern Standard Arabic in both Greece and the Middle East and speaks Arabic and Hebrew. His teaching assignments and scientific interests revolve around modern and contemporary Middle Eastern history, as well as language policies and politics and religion in the Middle East and North Africa; He has published essays in highly influential academic journals, such as The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, The Maghreb Review and Religions.

Kyrannos, Ioannis

Ionian University

Ioannis A. Kyrannos is an Officer in the Hellenic Army and holds an MA in Politics, Language, and Intercultural Communication, along with MSc degrees in Human Resource Management (HRM) and in Quality Management (QM). His research and professional interests lie at the intersection of political discourse, media influence, intercultural communication, human capital development, and operational excellence, with a particular emphasis on contemporary antisemitism and public opinion in Greece. In his recent thesis, he investigated antisemitism in Greece as a social phenomenon, focusing on the effects of the 2023 Gaza incursion through a mixed-methods approach that included surveys, interviews, and media content analysis.

Manoussaki-Adamopoulou, Ioanna

University College London (UCL)

Ioanna Manoussaki-Adamopoulou is a part-time PhD researcher (UCL Anthropology) looking at refugee rights, self-organised care and communal integration in Athens. She holds an MA in Visual Anthropology (Goldsmiths) and has worked across Europe, Asia and the US, exploring experiences and effects of forced migration, ableism, gender inequality and political violence through collaborative filmmaking. Her MRes in Anthropology (UCL) centres the role of Civil War historicity in shaping collective action during the Greek economic crisis. She is a project lead of PAPER, a UCL Anthropology decolonizing pedagogical project, a research assistant in UCL's DPU Hotspot action-research project on the impacts of refugee management in the Aegean, and a member of the Global Urban Violence research network. 

Marantzidis, Nikos
University of Macedonia, Civil Wars Stydy Group.

Nikos Marantzidis is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Balkan Slavic and Oriental Studies, at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. He holds a Ph.D. of Political Sociology from the University of Paris 10.. His Ph.D. thesis has focused on the implantation and the electoral evolution of the Communist party of Greece (KKE) in rural areas until the end of the Cold War. He has been visiting professor in the University of Chicago, in Charles University at Prague, in Warsaw University and the University of Kerala in India. He has published books and articles on the Greek and European communist parties, on electoral behavior and the Greek civil war. His last book (2023), Under Stalin's Shadow, a global history of Greek communism was published by Cornell University Press and in Greek by Alexandria Editions.

Mercan, Süleyman Sezgin
Başkent University

Associate Professor Süleyman Sezgin Mercan is Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, and the Departmental Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Başkent University, Ankara, Türkiye. His working areas are European Political History, Political, Economic, Social and Military Integration in Europe, Integration and Differentiation Theories, Separatist Movements in the EU, EU-Middle East relations, Türkiye-EU Relations, and project management. Dr. Mercan is one of the co-authors of the manuscript entitled Britain and European Integration: From Winston Churchill to Brexit. His research papers and articles are published in national and international peer-reviewed journals and books. The title of his recent publication is “Europeanization of Health Policies after Covid-19: Politicization, Governance and Coordination”. Dr. Mercan also involved in numerous national and international projects.

Meyer, Andrew

Rachel Corrie Foundation

Andrew Meyer is an Honorary Research Fellow at the European Centre for Palestine Studies and a former policy analyst at the Rachel Corrie Foundation. He holds a PhD in politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His broad research interests include settler colonial theory, comparative settler colonialisms, contemporary conceptions of the “political,” and Marxist thought.

Mitsika, Ioanna

University of the Aegean

She works as a dancer and choreographer. She has extensive professional experience in both theatre (movement direction, dance, choreography) and in teaching and facilitating groups of different ages and backgrounds in formal and non-formal education (Department of Theatre of the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Stavroupoli Higher School of Dance, Reception and Identification Centres for Refugees, prisons, training for educators on theatrical techniques, training for students and teachers on human rights, theatre and dance, etc.). She is a graduate of the professional dance school of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, holds a Law degree, and a Master's degree in Labour Law. She is a PhD candidate (Department of Social Anthropology, University of the Aegean). 

Mylona, Eftychia
University of Cyprus

Eftychia Mylona is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie/Onisilos post-doctoral researcher at the University of Cyprus, Nicosia. She received her Ph.D from the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Institute of Area Studies (LIAS) at Leiden University. Her research and teaching interests include the

contemporary history of Egypt and Greece, the political economy of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, and Middle East diasporas. More generally, she is interested in how diasporic communities explore and negotiate their presence, identity and feelings of belonging, in mind and practice. She has published in the peer-reviewed journals Mashriq & Mahjar, Diasporas, and Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée (REMMM), among others. She is the principal investigator of the research project “Life Around the Courts: Legal Practices of Ethnic and Religious Pluralism in Egypt, 1910s-1950s,” funded by the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme, together with Dr Mina Ibrahim and Ms Yasmin Tarek from Shubra’s Archive as co-applicants.

Randall, Jeremy

The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Ph.D. in History, is the associate director of the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He was recently the residential postdoctoral fellow at the Orient Institut Beirut. He is a historian of leftism in the Middle East with a focus on Palestine as well as leftist critiques of sectarianism and capitalism in postcolonial Lebanon via intellectual and cultural productions. He is currently preparing a monograph on the alliance between the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine with counterparts in Japan, Europe, and Latin America as an example of internationalism and solidarity with the Palestinian revolution in the 1970s and 1980s.

Richter-Devroe, Sophie

University of Exeter

Sophie Richter-Devroe is an Honorary Associate Professor at the European Centre for Palestine Studies, University of Exeter. Her broad research interests are in the field of everyday politics and women's activism in the Middle East. She is the author of Women's Political Activism in Palestine: Peacebuilding, Resistance and Survival (University of Illinois Press, 2018), which won the National Women's Studies Association First Book Prize. She has also researched and published on Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and the West Bank, as well as on the oral histories, memories, and narratives of women from the often forgotten Palestinian Naqab Bedouin population. More recently, she has led a research project on Syrian refugees in Italy and Greece.

Shabana, Ihab

University of the Peloponnese

Ihab Shabana has completed his PhD at the University of the Peloponnese in the Department of Political Sciences and International Relations with funding from State Scholarships Foundation (IKY). He is a graduate of the Department of History and Archeology of EKPA while he completed the masters degree in European History from the same department. His fields of research mainly concern the European and Arab Left, political Islam, social and labour movements in the Middle East, post-colonial studies, European history and intellectual history in the Arab-Muslim world. Further, he is a researcher at the Centre for Mediterranean, Middle East and Islamic Studies (CEMMIS). Since 2019 he has taught at the Hellenic Open University (HOU) and at The University of the Peloponnese.

Shroufi, Omran

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Postdocotral researcher, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Omran completed his PhD in Politics at the University of York where he examined the emergence of pro-Israeli far-right parties in West Europe. His research interests include far-right studies, far-right ideology, German politics, populism and anti-populism.

Stefanini, Pietro

University of Edinburgh

Pietro Stefanini is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. His primary research interests are in the international politics of humanitarianism, empire and settler colonialism, and anti-colonial resistance. Some of his academic work has been published in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Participation and Conflict, and by the American University in Cairo Press. 

Sunderland, James

Woolf Institute

Dr James A.S. Sunderland is a Research Fellow at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, and a Post Doctoral Research Associate at St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. His work focusses on the way in which events in Israel-Palestine since October 7th 2023 and the war in Gaza have impacted interfaith relations in the UK over the last year and a half. He holds a doctorate in history from the University of Oxford, where his thesis examined Jewish violence in the last four years of the British Mandate for Palestine.

Tobasi, Ahmed

Mushtabik project method reserch

Ahmed Tobasi is a Palestinian actor, director, and cultural activist from Jenin Camp in the occupied West Bank. He began his work in community theatre, learning that performance can be a form of resistance. His artistic path evolved to include directing and international collaboration. His work reflects personal and collective Palestinian experiences, exploring themes like exile, identity, occupation, and resilience. Tobasi has presented his work and led workshops across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. He remains committed to using theatre as a tool for expression and engagement. 

Tsibiridou, Fotini
University of Macedonia, Laboratory for the Study of Culture, Borders and Gender

Fotini Tsibiridou is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies at the University of Macedonia and acting Director of the Laboratory for the Study of Culture, Borders and Gender. She has done fieldwork in a former refugee village and among the Pomaks in Greek Thrace, in Macedonian and Peloponnese villages and the Sultanate of Oman. She has also researched nationalism and multiculturalist discourses and practices in Greek Thrace, as well as gender, citizenship and creative counterpublics in Istanbul. Currently (since 2018) she is researching two topics: post-Ottoman religiosity and gendered subjectivity in the frame of post-colonial critique (Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East), and feminist and other decolonizing methodologies deployed in creative protests and resistance practices in Mediterranean cities in the way to/of cosmopolitics.

Tsitselikis, Konstantinos
University of Macedonia, Laboratory of International Politics and Legal Studies (POLIS)

Konstantinos Tsitselikis. Professor in Human Rights and International Organizations at the University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki, Greece). Dean of the School of Economic and Regional Studies (2018-2023). Author of a series of books, studies and articles on human rights, minorities, refugee and migrant rights. He has also taught at the Universities of Thrace and Bilgi (Istanbul) and cooperated with the universities of Michigan, Columbia, Harvard, Sorbonne II, Tampere, Aix-en–Provence, SOAS, Aga Khan (London), Erlangen, Koya and Sulaimani (Kurdish Region, Iraq), among others. He has worked for the Council of Europe (1992-95), the OSCE, the UN and the EU (1997-2000) in human rights and democratisation field missions. Member of research teams, team leader, evaluator or trainer in a series of projects in relation to rule of law, human rights, minorities, migrants and refugees. Member of the Secretariat of the Research Centre for Minority Groups (KEMO) and chairman of the Hellenic League for Human Rights (2011-2017). Co-director of the Series of Studies of KEMO at Vivliorama pub. (Athens). Member of the Bar Association of Thessaloniki, lawyer before the European Court of Human Rights

Voglis, Polymeris
University of Thessaly, The Civil Wars Study Group

Polymeris Voglis is Professor of Social History at the University of Thessaly. He studied History at the University of Athens (BA, MA) and the European University Institute (PhD). He has published in English Becoming a Subject: Political Prisoners during the Greek Civil War (2002), and, in Greek, The Greek Society under Occupation, 1941–1944 (2010), The Unfeasible Revolution: Social Dynamics of the Greek Civil War (2014) and Dynamic Resistance: Subjectivity, Political Violence and the Struggle against the Dictatorship, 1967-1974 (2022). He is President of the Greek Association of Historians and a board member of the Contemporary Social History Archives.

Voutyras, Savvas
Bournemouth University, Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice (CESJ)

Savvas Voutyras is a Lecturer in Politics at Bournemouth University, and Program Leader for MA Political Psychology. He has a background in political theory, in particular critical theory and discourse theory, and psychosocial studies. His work combines psychoanalysis and discourse theory to look at questions of nationalism, the politicisation of loss and mourning, and the politics of austerity during economic crisis. His current research focuses on recent shifts in conservative rhetoric, the construction of ‘populism’ in political and media discourse, and the discourse and politics of ‘evaluation’ and metrics in economic policy. He is a member of the editorial board of Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society. He is also a member of the international Center for the Study of Democracy, Signification and Resistance (DESIRE), based in Brussels.