PhD Laureates

Defense Date: December 20th, 2025 Abstract: Moroccan French-language poetry engages with multifaceted crises of language, identity, politics, poetic subjectivity, and readerly reception–tensions rooted in the enduring impacts of colonialism, the uncertainties of post-colonial transition, and persistent sociopolitical tensions. Within this framework, Abdellatif Laâbi emerges as a central figure whose work simultaneously exemplifies and transcends these…

Defense Date: June 14th, 2025 Abstract: Intercultural Communicative Competence has become indispensable for university students in today’s increasingly globalized world. Beyond mere language proficiency, ICC encompasses the ability to communicate and collaborate effectively across cultural boundaries. This study is an empirical attempt to assess Moroccan EFL university students’ ICC and to systematically investigate the factors…

Defense Date: July 24th, 2025 Abstract: This dissertation explores migration literature, highlighting its importance in illustrating themes of resilience, identity, and belonging in the context of globalization. It explores how these narratives encompass the diverse experiences of migrants, illuminating the difficulties they encounter, including exile, cultural displacement, and the pursuit of a feeling of belonging….

Defense Date: June 24th, 2025 Abstract: Ezra Pound was an expatriate poet, critic and translator whose experiences abroad and contact with foreign influences altered poetic practices of the twentieth century. Through a comparative study of his imagist trinity of visuality, precision, and concision, “Imagism and Mediterranean Poetics: A Transnational Mode of Expression” investigates the contribution…

Defense Date: July 19th, 2025 Abstract: This dissertation explores the cultural significance of Moroccan oral storytelling as a living tradition that both transmits and reshapes the values, beliefs, and identities of Moroccan society. Despite the dominance of written literature, oral narratives in Morocco continue to thrive— evolving through performance, reinterpretation, and intergenerational transmission. Drawing on…

Defense Date: October 3rd, 2025 Abstract: This dissertation explores how a set of American literary giants from the nineteenth to the late twentieth century engage with the Mediterranean through travel writing and what can be called an evolving pattern of literary exploration that implicitly, partially shapes American identity. Through analyzing the works of Mark Twain,…

Viva Date: July 18th, 2025 Abstract: This thesis explores the intellectual projects of Abdallah Laroui and Taha Abderrahmane within the framework of an ongoing debate among thinkers on cultural history and nation-building in the Arab world. It is a comparative study of the ‘historicism’ of Abdallah Laroui and Taha Abderrahmane’s ‘deliberative field’ and ‘trusteeship’ paradigm….