Amro Ali

My research explores the human condition under assault from the forces of global consumption, material culture and digital technology, with a particular focus on how these forces shape identity, cities, modernity, and citizenship. At AGYA, I am currently co-running the ‘Salon Thaqafy’ project, which brings Arab exiles into rich discussion on a variety of topics around the occasion of the Arab Spring’s 10-year anniversary. I have also contributed two chapters to AGYA book projects: ‘Approaching the Islamic Prayer through Han, Nietzsche, and Heidegger’ in the book Faith Travels (2021), as well as ‘Walter Benjamin’s Ruins and the Disruption of Progress’ in the book Thinking with Ruins: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Functions, Interpretations, and (Mis-)uses of Remnants of the Past (2021). In 2021, I will work on the AGYA project ‘Critical Transformations in Germany: Turning the Arab Gaze on Germany’, and will take advantage of an AGYA research mobility grant to finish a book project that offers interdisciplinary perspectives on ‘second cities’.

I joined AGYA as I strongly value the interdisciplinary and bridge-building nature of its mandate.

It is rare to find an organization that enables one to work in the grey areas between academia and the public sphere, giving license to unleash one’s intellectual impetus and creative imagination to develop projects along with colleagues that shed light on the blind spots missed by conventional university research. In this regard, AGYA contributes to the public good in novel ways and, in the process, also creates small new communities of thought of practice.

Academic career