November 2024

Sara Borrillo is Associate Professor of History of Islamic Countries at “L’Orientale” University in Naples, where she is PI of the ERC Starting Grant with the project MEGAMAPS – Mapping Emerging Gender Artivism in the Mediterranean Arab Public Space.

In 2022-2023 she has been Assistant Professor in History of Islamic countries at Tor Vergata University in Rome. In 2021 she has been the laureate of the Gender Chair of the French GIS-Institute du Genre at University Sorbonne Paris 1-Pantheon. In 2014 she obtained a PhD in Middle Eastern studies at University of Naples “L’Orientale”, where she also has served as post-doctoral fellow researcher (2015-2019). She has taught History of Islamic Countries at the University of Macerata (2016-2018) and Islamic Law at Roma Tre University (2020-2021). She has collaborated with several Italian universities (University of Florence, 2014: Project “What kind of Mediterranean Citizenship”; Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa, 2020: Project “Enhancing Women’s Participation in Peace and Security, WEPPS”), research centres (Axetudes, Rabat and World Bank), NGOs (Ciss, Less, Un ponte per..., Dedalus ooperative, Cidis onlus) In Italy and abroad. She has collaborated in international cooperation projects (GIZ Maroc) and participated in several national and international research groups, such as ILM-Islamic Learning in Morocco/L’enseignement de l’Islam au Maroc (XVIII-XXI siècles): islamologie et sciences sociales and the European projects TRAinTraining (Transfer Radicalization Approaches in Training) and TRIVALENT (Terrorism prevention via radicalisation counter-narrative).

Her research interests are mainly focused on women’s movements, gender politics and Islam, secular and Islamic feminisms, new female religious authorities, art, activism and contemporary socio- political transformations in the MENA region. She has conducted ethnographic research in the West Bank (TPO), in Morocco, where she has been a research associate to the Centre Jacques Berque pour les Sciences Humaines et Sociales (CNRS) in Rabat (2012-2014) and in Tunis, where she has been visiting scholar at IRMC (Institute de Recherche sur le Maghreb Contemporain) in 2016.