معرفی
Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zayed is an active post-doctoral researcher and visiting scholar simultaneously affiliated with the Institute for Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin (as an affiliated postdoctoral researcher at the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies) and the American University of Beirut (as postdoctoral research affiliate on the "Afro-Asian Futures Past" project since September 2020). His work bridges comparative literature, critical theory, and decolonial thought with a sustained focus on the Global South.
Al-Zayed earned a PhD in English with a specialization in English and Comparative Literature after moving from his native Syria to India in 2011. During 2013-2019 he held the prestigious Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) scholarship; from 2017-2019 he was an ICSSR-funded Research Associate in the Department of English at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi.
Research Interests:
His scholarship interrogates the interstices of decoloniality, de-colonisability, postcoloniality, and philosophies of liberation emerging from the Global South. Comparative literature, critical theory, Islam, Arabic literature, and the mediation of crisis and resistance through literary, cinematic, and theoretical frames constitute his core thematic axes. His current project, “Engaging with Paradigm(s) of Decoloniality/De-colonisability: Constructing a Dialogic Encounter between Frantz Fanon and Malek Bennabi,” epitomizes this agenda.
Awards & Fellowships:
- Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) Scholarship, 2013–2019
- Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) Research Fellowship, 2017–2019
Creative & Scholarly Outputs:
Beyond academic essays, Al-Zayed is the author of the poetry collection Cartographies of Absence (Adroit, 2018), which explores themes of war, displacement, memory, and identity.
Labs, Teams & Future Directions:
He contributes to the multi-institutional “Afro-Asian Futures Past” research network, collaborating across Berlin, Beirut, Accra, and Cape Town. Future scholarly work is expected to expand his comparative analyses of Fanonian and Bennabian thought while continuing to publish creative and critical interventions on Global South epistemologies.
