Affiliated Researcher
Email: Sarah.Bulbeisi@lmu.de
July 2025-June 2026
Sarah El Bulbeisi is a senior lecturer at the Institute for Near and Middle East Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich since 2025. Prior to that, she was a research associate at the OIB.
Sarah El Bulbeisi joined the OIB in November 2019 after completing her PhD at the Institute for Near and Middle East Studies at the LMU Munich, Germany. Before joining the OIB, she coordinated the DAAD project “Violence, Forced Migration and Exile: Trauma in the Arab World and in Germany”, a Higher Education Dialogue between Palestinian and Lebanese universities as well as with the LMU Munich. Prior to that, she worked as a lecturer and research associate at the Institute for Near and Middle East Studies at the LMU Munich. Her PhD thesis “Taboo, Trauma and Identity: Subject Constructions of Palestinians in Germany and Switzerland, 1960 to 2015” draws on conversations, life stories and participant observation and explores the tension between the (family) histories of first and second generation Palestinians, which are characterized by the experience of expulsion and dispossession, and the reshaping of this experience in the Western European representation of the so called Middle East conflict. Sarah El Bulbeisi’s postdoc research at the OIB revolves around the interrelations between systemic violence and family & intimate relations in Lebanon.
Based on biographical-narrative interviews, conversations and participant observations, my project focuses on the life worlds and relationships of the Lebanese war and post-war generation. It explores intergenerational relationships and intimate relationships, images of the self and the other as well as constructions of collective identities (e.g. denominational and gender) as well as breaks with these and ways of self-realization against the background of subjective and objective violence (Zizek). It also looks at how the actors make sense of a past which is not dealt with, a present which doesn`t seem to belong to them and a homeland, which remains a place of alienation.
Author: Dr. Sarah El Bulbeisi
El-Bulbeisi@orient-institut.org
Monographs
Tabu, Trauma und Identität: Subjektkonstruktionen von PalästinenserInnen in Deutschland und in der Schweiz, 1960-2015. Bielefeld (transcript), 2020
Articles in Journals
"Palestine in the Imagination of the Imperial German Self: Gustav Dalman and the Bavarian War Archive", Palestine from Above: Surveillance, Cartography, Control (Part 2), Jerusalem Quarterly Issue 82 (Summer 2020)
Book Chapters
"From Self-Denial to Politics of Visibility: Palestinians in Germany and Switzerland from the 1960s to 2015", in: Schiocchet, Leonardo and Nölle-Karimi, Christine (ed.), Forced Migration Studies: Current Interventions. ROR-n Plattform Series 1(3), 235–246. Vienna (Austrian Academy of Sciences), 2022.
“Das Tabu der Nakba in der europäischen Geschichtsschreibung Erinnerung und ihre Folgen für PalästinenserInnen in Deutschland und der Schweiz”, in: Michele Amacker, Ewa Charkiewcz, Alex Demirovic (ed.), Erinnern für Gegenwart und Zukunft. Widerspruch 79 (41/2), 51–58. Zürich, 2022.
"The Relation between Trauma and Identity: On Being Palestinian in Germany", in: Mitri Raheb (ed.), Diaspora and Identity: The Case of Palestine, Bethlehem 2017
Conference Reports
Conference Report to Neighbourliness in Global Perspective. (Cairo: 12–14 December 2019, Goethe Institut Cairo Dokki & American University in Cairo). H-Soz-Kult, 2021, <https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-127529>
Articles in Press Media
“Die Katastrophe wirkt fort.” Aufbruch–Unabhängige Zeitschrift für Religionen und Gesellschaft: Palästinensische Perspektiven, 255 (34), 6–9. 30. März 2022
“Von Generation zu Generation: Kollektives Trauma von PalästinenserInnen.” FAMA feministisch politisch theologisch: Versehrt, 38 (1), 12–13. Februar 2022
“Alle belügen sich – der Staat profitiert: Fünf libanesische Intellektuelle nehmen Stellung zur Lage in ihrem Land.” Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), 26. August 2020
Blog Texts
Tabu, Trauma und Identität: Subjektkonstruktionen von PalästinenserInnen in Deutschland und in der Schweiz, 1960-2015. Interview / readme.txt, 28.07.2021, https://gab.hypotheses.org/9409
Violence, Be It Visible or Invisible, Shapes All of Our Lives. 5in10 (Forum Transregionale Studien) with Sarah El Bulbeisi, 04.03.2021,https://trafo.hypotheses.org/26827
Taboo, Trauma and Identity: Subject Constructions of Palestinians in Germany and in Switzerland, 1960 to 2015, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 01.12.2020, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/25731.
Translations
Hlehel, Amr. "Der palästinensische Film: eine Frage von Leben und Tod", Sicherheit, CINEMA. Translated by Sarah El Bulbeisi. Marburg 2007
Lectures
Presentation “Trauma und Tabu: Palästinenser*Innen in Deutschland und der Schweiz” as part of the series Psychoanalytische Kulturwissenschaft Lecture Series 2022-23
Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI), Berlin, 15 November 2022
Presentation “Taboo, Trauma and Identity: Palestinians in Germany and Switzerland” at the panel “Mandate Palestine and the Contemporary Memory Debate in Germany”
IPS Annual Conference “Reassessing the British Mandate on Palestine”, Ramallah, 31 October – 2 November 2022
Presentation “The Taboo of the Nakba and its Consequences for Palestinians in Germany and Switzerland” and discussion round at the conference “Anti-Zionism as Taboo”
JudeobolscheWienerinnen, online, 16 October / 6 November 2022
Presentation “Zum Verhältnis von Trauma und Identität: PalästinenserInnen in Deutschland und der Schweiz” at the conference „Generations“ – Jüdischer Lerntag
Jom Ijun, Zürich, 15 May 2022
Presentation “Tabu, Trauma und Identität: Palästinenserinnen in Deutschland und in der Schweiz”
AK Nahost Bremen, online, 27 January 2022
Presentation on findings from the Bavarian war archive at the Symposium for launching the book "Palestine from Above"
IPS/Qattan Foundation Ramallah, 16 November 2021
Presentation „Tabu, Trauma, Identität: PalästinenserInnen in Deutschland und in der Schweiz“
Café Palestine, Zürich, 27 June 2021
Public Research Seminar “Taboo, Trauma, And Identity: Subject constructions of Palestinians in Germany and Switzerland, 1960–2015”
Orient-Institut Beirut, Beirut, 17 June 2021
Presentation of the book “Taboo, Trauma, and Identity: Subject Constructions of Palestinians in Germany and Switzerland, 1960s–2015”
Summer School Palästina Spricht, Berlin, 1–2 August 2020
Presentation “The Middle East Conflict and the Palestinians in Israel”
Münchner Kammerspiele, Munich, 30 January 2017
Presentation “Being Palestinian in Germany”
“Spiritual Care and Migration”, IASC (International Association for Spiritual Care) Inaugural Conference, Institute for Practical Theology, University of Berne, 19–21 June 2016
Presentation “On Trauma and Melancholia”
„Forms of Violence“, Konferenz am Institut für den Nahen und Mittleren Osten, LMU, 8 April 2016
Presentation “The Relationship Between Trauma and Identity”
Palestine Diaspora Conference, Dar al-Kalima University College, Bethlehem, 12–14 August 2015
Presentation “Narrating Trauma”
32. Deutscher Orientalistentag (DOT), Münster, 23–27 September 2013
Presentation “Palästina – Erinnerungen”
“Gespräche im Park“, Pasinger Fabrik, Kultur- und Bürgerzentrum der Landeshauptstadt München, München, 26 July 2013
Moderation of panels
Chair of the panel “Minorities and vulnerable in Sharia Courts: A new perspective” at the OIB-conference "Discussing the Interdependence between Humans, Religion and Environment"
Cairo, 11–12 December 2022
Chair of the panel "Gender Aspects of the Intifada" at the OIB-workshop "Women, Banks and Politics: Making Sense of the Intifada"
Orient-Institut Beirut, Beirut, 15 October 2020
Chair of the panel "Exhibiting and Performing Neighborliness" at the conference "Neighbourliness in Global Perspective"
Fifth Annual Conference of the Max Weber Foundation, Cairo, 12–14 December 2019
Press and Interviews
1972 Münchens Schwarzer September. Interview in documentary, 2022
BIP-Gespräch #29: Sarah El Bulbeisi. Interview in Podcast /BIP(Bündnis für Gerechtigkeit zwischen Israelis und Palästinensern e.v.), 18.05.2022,https://bip-jetzt.de/2022/05/18/bip-gespraech-29-sarah-el-bulbeisi/
In Berlin, a fight for Palestinian identity — and a place to call home. Interview in magazine / +972 Magazine, 14.02.2022,https://www.972mag.com/palestinians-berlin-refugees/
Der Palästinenser ist der Prototyp des arabischen Terroristen. Interview in magazine / Beobachter, 21.10.2021, https://www.beobachter.ch/gesellschaft/der-palastinenser-ist-der-prototyp-des-arabischen-terroristen-350403
Organization of scholarly meetings
Organisation of the workshop “Collective Action, Social Movements, and Civil Society in the Arab Region”, DAAD Higher Education Dialogue with the Muslim World, 13–15 February 2020, Berlin.
Organisation and moderation of the workshop “Identity in the Age of Migration and Globalisation”, DAAD Higher Education Dialogue with the Muslim World, 2019, Tunis.
Organisation and moderation of the workshop “Violence and Ideology”, DAAD Higher Education Dialogue with the Muslim World, LMU, 2019, Munich.
Organisation and moderation of the workshop “Academic Writing in English”, DAAD Higher Education Dialogue with the Muslim World, LMU, 2018, Munich.
Organisation and moderation of the workshop “Working with ATLAS.ti, the Software for Qualitative Data Analysis”, DAAD Higher Education Dialogue with the Muslim World, 2018, Amman.
Organisation and moderation of the workshop “Studying Trauma from an Interdisciplinary Perspective”, DAAD Higher Education Dialogue with the Muslim World, LMU, 2018, Munich.
Organisation and moderation of the workshop “Developing Research Designs”, Research Group Violence, Forced Migration and Exile, DAAD Higher Education Dialogue with the Muslim World, LMU, 2017, Munich.
Organisation and moderation of the workshop “Qualitative and Quantitative Data Collection Methods”, Research Group Violence, Forced Migration and Exile, DAAD Higher Education Dialogue with the Muslim World, LMU, 2017, Munich.
Organisation and moderation of the workshop “Data Analysis Methods”, Research Group Violence, Forced Migration and Exile, DAAD Higher Education Dialogue with the Muslim World, 2017, Amman.
Organisation and moderation of the panel “Violence, Forced Migration and Exile in the Arab World”, at the 33. Deutscher Orientalistentag (DOT) “Asia, Africa and Europe”, 2017, Jena.
Organisation and moderation of the panel “Studying Palestine in Germany - an Inventory”, at the international DAVO congress, 2016, Tübingen.
Organisation und moderation of the workshop “Palestine in Arab Media”, Research Group Arabic Mass Media and (Trans-)Regional Network Culture, Institute of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, LMU, 2016, Munich.