Current guest researchers
Shaimaa Atef
Shaimaa Atef is a PhD candidate in the Analysis and Management of Cultural Heritage at Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca in Italy. Her research explores the administrative history of antiquities management bodies in Egypt, with a particular focus on the governance and administration of public museums. She holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Heritage Management from Sorbonne University, Paris 1 (2014), where she published her thesis on the architectural preservation of the vernacular heritage of Siwa Oasis, Egypt. In 2015, she further specialized in research methodologies by earning a Diploma in Research Methods and Skills from the Maastricht School of Management, Netherlands.
Christina de Korte
Christina de Korte is a visual artist and a student in the research master’s program in Religious Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the HKU University of Arts Utrecht and a bachelor’s degree in Language and Culture Studies from Utrecht University. Her master’s thesis research “Let the Textile Speak: Egyptian Khayamiya Through the Streets of Cairo” focuses on the Egyptian appliqué technique khayamiya—derived from the Arabic word for tent, namely khayma—and its contemporary usages before and during Ramadan. By following the routes of various types of khayamiya through Cairo’s streets and taking courses in the Street of the Tentmakers, she analyses how khayamiya dresses up the city, and invites people to interact with it. This interdisciplinary approach between textiles, heritage, material religion, and (art-)history makes it possible to let the textile speak.
Claudia Cazzaniga
Claudia Cazzaniga is a graduate student at the University of Milan, pursuing a Master's degree in Languages and Cultures for Communication and International Cooperation. Her master's dissertation explores the structure of personal networks among migrant women from Egypt to Italy, according to a qualitative and gender-sensitive approach. Her project involves field research, including in-depth interviews with a sample of Egyptian women living in a multicultural neighborhood in Milan, as well as with their families in Egypt. The research focuses on the changes in relational dynamics within these networks following migration.
Annmarie Kiiskinen
Annmarie Kiiskinen is a CHASE AHRC funded Doctoral Researcher at the collaborative PhD project ‘Transnational Solidarity, Patronage, and Politicking: Egyptian-Southern African Relations in the Global Cold War’ with SOAS University of London, Birkbeck University of London and Arab and African Research Center in Cairo. Following studies in Middle Eastern studies and work in diplomacy and conflict resolution, she is writing her PhD thesis on the the histories of African liberation and anticolonial solidarity in Nasser’s Egypt, looking at the role of Afro-Arab politics and African activists in Cairo.
Lilly Massoud-Judge
Lilly Massoud-Judge is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in comparative political economy and Middle East politics. Her dissertation considers how ongoing economic reforms have impacted material and affective investment in the Egyptian national economy, amid a backdrop of ongoing financialization and integration into regional and international circuits of capital.
Dag Henrik Tuastad
Dag Henrik Tuastad is an Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oslo, specializing in political anthropology with a focus on Palestinian politics. Holding a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Oslo, his research interests encompass the role of kinship in Palestinian politics and the democratization process within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In Cairo he researches the politics of sports in the Middle East, in particular football as a cultural and political way to understand the region.
Jessa Wildemeersch
Jessa Wildemeersch is a socially engaged actress and dramatist, currently in residence at NVIC. With her organization les yeux bleus, she creates theatrical performances, incorporating historical events with present-day perspectives, focusing on the female representation in life and art. Her current research project is structured around the last Hellenistic Queen of independent Egypt, Cleopatra VII. Jessa juxtaposes the different perspectives projected onto Cleopatra since her death (30BC.) She questions the influence of politics, culture and class within these changing perceptions, by applying different research approaches such as interviews, field trips and secondary sources, to compose a contemporary text. As a theatre author, Jessa obtained international residencies in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Isola Comacina in Northern Italy and the Academia Belgica in Rome. She holds a master in Acting from the Studio Herman Teirlinck in Antwerp and The Actors Studio Drama School at New School University in New York. In 2005 she was awarded a Lifetime membership at The Actors Studio, an artistic home in New York for professional actors and writers. Jessa has appeared in both theatre productions and films in Belgium and abroad. Her debut novel De Madonna van het moeras (2024, Horizon) was adapted for the stage and had its world première in the historical Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome. The residency at NVIC is supported by Flanders Literature.