Biography and Research Interests

Shurouq Ibrahim is a Ph.D candidate and University Fellow in the Department of Comparative Studies, with a graduate minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS). Shurouq is interested in the study of world literatures, and her previous research compared representations of individual, vicarious, and cultural trauma in contemporary world literatures. Her current project is located at the nexus of cultural trauma, affect, and the supernatural in Arabic and Anglo Arab literature. She draws on critical trauma theory, Islamic studies, and feminist frameworks to analyze speculative fiction written against the backdrop of violent collective experiences like colonialism, war, and exile. Shurouq is particularly interested in gothic tropes such as hybridity, haunting, the monstrous feminine, and embodied abjection.

Selected Peer-Reviewed Publications 

• Ibrahim, S. (Feb. 2026). "Navigating Trauma through Arabic Gothic Literature," Ananke Magazine, https://issuu.com/anankemag/docs/ananke_voices_2026_/119?ff 
• Ibrahim, S. (Nov. 2025). "Circular Hybridity: Reconciling Identity and Place in Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home," Cultural Practices of Place: A Sense of Placing, Palgrave Macmillan, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-96848-8_2  

Book Reviews

• Ibrahim, S. (May 2026). Review of Parray, Tauseef Ahmad. Islam and Democracy in the 21st Century. Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 2, 10.13169/arabstudquar.48.2.0005  
• Ibrahim, S. (Mar. 2026). Review of Ez-Eldin, Mansoura. The Orchards of Basra, trans. Paul G. Starkey, Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 1, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48877008
• Ibrahim, S. (May 2025). Review of The Dissenters by Youssef Rakha, Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 2, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48828282 

Research

• Research Associate, Center for the Study of Religion (2023-2025)

Teaching Record

• ARABIC 3705 | A Thousand and One Nights: Storytelling in Arabic and World Literature (AU 2026)
• ARABIC 3702 | Place, Space, and Migration in Modern Arabic Literature and Film
• ARABIC/WGSS 2702 | Gender & Citizenship in Modern Arabic Literature in Translation 
• COMPSTD 2301 | Introduction to World Literature 
• RELSTDS 2370 | Introduction to Comparative Religion [Recitation Instructor]

Selected Awards and Fellowships

• Philip A. Armstrong Graduate Student Departmental Service Award (2025-2026 AY)
• Distinguished University Fellowship, Comparative Studies (2025-2026 AY)
• FREE Center Graduate Small Grants for Feminist Scholarship (2025, 2024)
• Center for the Study of Religion Research and Travel Grant (2026, 2025, 2023)
• The Richard Bjornson Award for Best Essay by a Graduate Student in Comparative Studies (2022-2023 AY)
• Distinguished University Fellowship, Comparative Studies (2021-2022 AY)