Keynote & Book Presentation

Soumaya Louhichi is currently a lecturer at the Institute for Islamic Studies at Heidelberg University. She has previously taught at several German universities, specializing in Ottoman, Islamic, and Middle Eastern history. In addition to her teaching and research, she coordinates and leads the Ottoman History section of the Encyclopaedia Arabica, a project of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, based in Doha and Beirut. She also serves as Coordinator of Turkish Studies at the University of Tunis.
Her research focuses on Ottoman and post-Ottoman history, with particular interests in state formation and border-making, political belonging and Arab–Turkish relations. She is the (co-) editor of Post-Ottoman Transitions: Rethinking Nation-State Trajectories in the Arab and Turkish Contexts (Ergon, 2026). The book situates the political and social transformations of the modern Middle East and Turkey within the broader Ottoman imperial context, exploring the continuities, ruptures, and legacies that have shaped the post-Ottoman world.