Prof. dr. Ihab Saloul is Co-Founder and Research Director of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture AHM at the University of Amsterdam, and Professor of Memory Studies and Narrative at the International Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities ‘Umberto Eco' at the University of Bologna. He is also a research domain leader of ‘Conflict’ at the University of Amsterdam Research Priority Area, the Amsterdam Centre Cultural Heritage and Identity ACHI. Saloul held senior research positions and visiting professorships at various institutions such as the Institute of Advanced Studies (Istituto di Studi Avanzati (IAS), Istituto di Studi Superiori of the Alma Mater Studiorum, ISA at the University of Bologna, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies NIAS, the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, WIKO /EUME ), Free University Berlin (Center for Middle Eastern & North African Politics ), Marburg University (CNMS, The Research Network Re-Configurations), and Maastricht University.
Saloul obtained his PhD in the Humanities from the University of Amsterdam. He holds a BA degree in English Literature from Birzeit University (Palestine), an MA in English and Comparative Literature, and MPhil in Cultural Analysis from the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) at the University of Amsterdam. Saloul’s expertise extend beyond the fields of heritage and memory studies, and encompass cultural memory and conflict, museum studies, literary and narrative theory, identity politics, cultural analysis, post-colonialism, arts, aesthetics and visual culture as well as migration, diaspora and exile in contemporary cultural thought in the Middle East and Europe.
Saloul is an editor of two book series, ‘Heritage & Memory Studies' (Amsterdam University Press AUP) and the ‘Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict’ (Palgrave Macmillan), and a co-founding Editor-in-Chief of the international peer-reviewed open access journal, ‘International Journal of Heritage, Memory and Conflict’ (HMC ) at the Amsterdam University Press AUP. His recent publications include Martyrdom: Canonisation, Contestation and Afterlives (Amsterdam University Press, 2020), Catastrophe and Exile in the Modern Palestinian Imagination: Telling Memories (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012 / Paper Edition 2018), Zoom In: Palestinian Refugees of 1948, Remembrances (Republic of Letters, 2011).
Saloul teaches in the BA Cultural Studies, MA Heritage and Memory Studies, MA Museum Studies, and the ReMA Heritage, Memory and Archaeology of which he was the program co-coordinator from (2016-2020). Since 2016 Saloul chairs the Curriculum Committee of the MA Heritage Studies (opleidingscommissie OC master erfgoed: MA Heritage and Memory Studies, MA Museum Studies, MA Curating Arts and Culture) at the University of Amsterdam. He also developed advanced seminars such as the ReMA & PhD seminar (Heritage & Memory Theory, 2015- ) at the Huizinga Institute, the ReMA seminar (Violence and Postcolonial Remembrances, 2017-2019) at the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies OSL, and the BA honour-program course Competing Memories, 2014-2016) at the faculty of Humanities at the university of Amsterdam. Saloul supervises several PhD and Postdoc projects and participates in international scholarly committees and networks.
Saloul also initiated and currently coordinates two international exchange and research collaboration programs: the international Erasmus Amsterdam-Bologna exchange program and the University of Amsterdam-New York University Abu Dhabi research programs. He also leads the UvA part of the EU Horizon-2020 Rise Marie Curie project 'SPEME, Questioning Traumatic Heritage: Spaces of Memory in Europe, Argentina, Colombia’ (2018-2022) which takes as its specific object of investigation a various array of spaces of memory, such as museums, former detention camps and sites of commemoration, to investigate how various traumatic pasts can be preserved and transmitted through space, and which kind of innovative actions might both improve knowledge of the past and serve as an opening to actual issues and new social subjects.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Questioning Traumatic Heritage: Spaces of Memory in Europe and South America. Ihab Saloul, Patrizia Violi, Anna Maria Lorusso, Cristina Demaria (eds). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024
W.G. Sebald’s Artistic Legacies: Memory, Word and Image. Leonida Kovač, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Ilse van Rijn and Ihab Saloul (eds). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023
Diasporic Heritage and Identity. Ihab Saloul, Eleri Connick, Lucy Gaynor and Mario Panico (eds). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023
Witnessing, Memory and Crisis. Ihab Saloul, Anna Schjott Hansen, Reka Deim, Dawid Grabowski and Mehmet Sulek (eds). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022
Editorial Work (International Journals & Book Series)
Articles, Book Chapters, Special Journal Issues, Lectures & Conference Papers
RESEARCH PROJECTS
Ongoing and Completed PhD & Postdoc Supervision
Conference Organisation
Public Events