In Process: Siham Bouamer with Denis M. Provencher

Join us for a works-in-progress seminar of Siham Bouamer's "Globalizing Moroccan Culture: Identity, Representation, and Cultural Flows" with invited interloutor Denis M. Provencher. Advanced registration required to receive the draft for discussion 1 week before the event. Space is limited.

Globalizing Moroccan Culture: Identity, Representation, and Cultural Flows

Scholarship on Morocco’s position in global networks has largely focused on economic and socio-political structures, yet cultural production plays a critical role in shaping transnational identities. In conversation with Denis Provencher, Siham Bouamer will explore how Moroccan cultural phenomena—cinema, literature, music, and sports—circulate globally and contribute to ongoing negotiations of identity, authenticity, and power. While global markets often celebrate cultural diversity, they also risk commodifying it and prioritizing accessibility for external audiences over the integrity of local practices. Drawing on theoretical perspectives in decolonial studies, this discussion will interrogate the tensions between cultural representation and global power structures. The conversation will examine how Moroccan cultural actors navigate and challenge dominant narratives and offer new perspectives on the intersections of globalization, identity, and cultural hierarchies in the contemporary world.

Siham Bouamer is a 2024–25 Taft Center Fellow and French and Francophone studies scholar specializing in colonial and postcolonial literatures and films. Her research expertise primarily focuses on travel writing and imperialism, as well as migration and belonging in contemporary France. Her approaches to these fields are extensively informed by theories and methodologies emerging from affect, cultural, gender, and queer studies.

Dr. Denis M. Provencher is Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Affairs and Partnerships and Professor of French and Francophone Studies at NC State University. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the interdisciplinary journals Contemporary French Civilization (CFC) and CFC Intersections, published by Liverpool University Press. Dr. Provencher is the author of Queer French: Globalization, Language, and Sexual Citizenship in France (Ashgate/Routledge, 2007) and Queer Maghrebi French: Language, Temporalities, Transfiliations, (Liverpool UP, 2017). With Dr. Siham Bouamer, he has co-edited the volume Abdellah Taïa's Queer Migrations: Non-Places, Affect, and Temporalities (Lexington Books, 2021). He is currently finishing a new co-edited volume, Queer Realms of Memory: Archiving LGBTQ Sites and Symbols in the French National Narrative (Liverpool UP), with Dr. Siham Bouamer and Dr. Ryan Schroth.

Host or Publisher Taft Research Center