Dr. Ahdaf Soueif is the author of - among other titles - the bestselling The Map of Love (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and translated into more than 30 languages), the well-loved In the Eye of the Sun (1993) and Cairo: a City Transformed, her account of the Egyptian revolution of 2011. As a translator, her rendering of Mourid Barghouti’s I Saw Ramallah has become a classic. As a political and cultural commentator, her Mezzaterra (2004) has been influential and her articles for the Guardian are published in the European and American press.

From 2011 to 2015 she wrote a weekly column for the Egyptian national daily, Shorouk. In 2007 Ms Soueif founded the Palestine Festival of Literature – PalFest, which takes place in the cities of occupied Palestine and Gaza.  
Ms Soueif has been awarded 4 honorary doctorates and was the first recipient of the Mahmoud Darwish Award (Palestine) in 2010. In 2019 she received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Dr. Ovidi Carbonell Cortés is Full Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Salamanca, Spain. He has also taught at the universities of Salford (UK), James Madison (USA), Benito Juárez (Oaxaca, Mexico) and Hamad bin Khalifa (Doha, Qatar), where he was also Director of Postgraduate Studies and Research at the Translation and Interpreting Institute (2015-2017). He is author of Übersetzen ins Andere (2002), Traducción y cultura: de la ideología al texto (1999), and Traducir al Otro: traducción, exotismo, poscolonialismo (1997). Some of his edited works include, The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture (2018, co-edited with Sue-Ann Harding), Culguage in/of Translation from Arabic (2014, co-edited with Said Faiq, and Ali al-Manna), Presencias japonesas (2014), Intercultural Translation in a Global World (2015, co-edited with Izaskun Elorza), and Ideology and Cross-Cultural Encounters (2009, co-edited with Myriam Salama-Carr). His lines of research include translation theory, ideology and intercultural Communication. His working languages are English, Catalan, Spanish, Arabic, and Japanese.

The Power of Creativity: Dynamics of Resistance and Cooptation in Cultural and Creative Industries:

Cultural translation is a key source for culture constitution; from an anthropological perspective, cultural identities are by definition a sum of elements integrated into a whole through transculturation processes. Languages are constructed similarly; lexical and discursive translation play a key role in historical linguistics. In this short talk I shall pose several questions as regards the adaptation of cultural traits in intercultural communication in general, and the language of art and aesthetics, and the ambivalent attitudes recently developed towards cultural appropriation. To what extent is exoticism a negative agency? How is cooptation enacted in cultural translation? Are there limits between inspiration and plagiarism? What is the relationship between appropriation and the commodification of cultural elements? I shall address these questions drawing from cases in the cultural and creative industries and explore diverse strategies of cultural resistance and reappropriation.

Dr. Hany El-konayyesi, is a seasoned bi-lingual TV journalist with over 28 years of proven track record of International level expertise accumulated across various senior roles & key positions in several top-notch media organizations and global news networks (broadcasting in Arabic & in English) in the Middle East, GCC region, Europe, USA and other interesting parts of the world. Dr Hany received his PhD in Mass Communication and Television Journalism from Cairo University and his MA in Mass Communication and Television Journalism from the American University in Cairo (AUC). Dr Hany held different senior positions in TV News Channel like TRT World, AL-Jazeera English Channel (AJE), and BBC Arabic TV. Currently, Dr Hany is in charge of launching and managing a video journalism service, for a renowned international news outlet, across various digital and social media platforms that target Arabic speaking audience all over the world.

Dr. Julie Boéri is Associate Professor in Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. After a BA and MA in translation and interpreting at the University of Granada (Spain), Julie Boéri obtained a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies from the University of Manchester (UK). She has taught Interpreting at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), Communication & Information Sciences at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis (Nice, France) and Intercultural Communication at Hamad Bin Khalifa University.

Her academic work focuses on the translational nature of socio-political and technological change, with a particular interest in the ethics and politics of mediation and communication in professional, artistic and scholarly practice. She has published in varying outlets: Qualitative Research, The Translator, Translation and Interpreting Studies, Translation in Society, Quaderns, Puentes, The Translator and Interpreter Trainer, Meta: journal des traducteurs, Hermès, Language and Communication, Revues des Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication, The Journal of Internationalization and Localization, among others. She co-edited (with Carol Maier, Kent State University, USA) the bilingual English and Spanish book Compromiso Social y Traducción/Interpretación – Translation/Interpreting and Social Activism. She is Vice-President of IATIS, the International Association of Translation and Intercultural Studies.

Dr. Rana Kazkaz, an award-winning filmmaker, is an assistant professor of communication in residence at Northwestern Qatar who teaches narrative filmmaking. Kazkaz’s films have been recognized at the world’s leading film festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Tallinn, Tribeca, and Abu Dhabi. She received her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University/Moscow Art Theater, BA from Oberlin College, and a certificate from the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women. With a focus on Syrian stories, her producing, screenwriting, and directing portfolio includes The Translator (2020), Mare Nostrum (2016) which has been selected in over 100 international film festivals and won more than 30 awards, Searching for the Translator, a documentary (2016), Deaf Day (2011), and Kemo Sabe (2007).

Her first feature film The Translator (2020) won several grants and development awards including the Arte Award at L’Atelier de la Cinéfondation at the Cannes Film Festival (2017), the CNC Award at Meetings on the Bridge at the Istanbul Film Festival (2017) and a Tribeca Alumni Grant (2018). The Translator receives 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Her current film projects include The Hakawati’s Daughter and Honest Politics. In 2021, she was invited to become a member of the Académie des Césars and was awarded the Roberta Buffett Visiting Professorship at Northwestern University.