Ali Mostfa

Linguist, PhD in English language and culture and senior lecturer at Lyon Catholic University, is in charge of a class on Geopolitics of religions at ESTRI.

My background is based on the following landmarks: a thesis on the enunciative analysis of Virginia Woolf's novel, The Waves, defended at the Université Lumière Lyon 2, studies on modern English literature and, for the past ten years, a sustained reflection on religious discourse in general and Islam in particular in the public space.

At the crossroads between literary studies and discourse analysis, my research integrates the analysis of religious, political and cultural imaginaries. The question of language occupies a central place in the context of a research project that aims to culturally, socially and politically contextualize religious discourse as a second language operation.

Based on key words such as memory, discourse, identity, religiosity, otherness, political and cultural Islam, my research project addresses directly or indirectly the conceptual and discursive processes through which Arab-Muslim thought affirms its own representation of new social, political and religious issues after the "Arab Spring".

After having organized a research group, ERUDITT (2018-2019), within ESTRI, on the issue of discourse and otherness, I am carrying on my reflection, in coherence with the argumentative framework of the research unit n° 3, on the religious appropriation of space as a place of junction, reconnection and "reterritorialization".  In the course of my research, I try precisely to address the various crossings which reconstitute the trace of a memory under tension, torn between fidelity and infidelity.

My participation in the creation of PLURIEL (University Platform of Research on Islam in Europe and Lebanon), about ten years ago, as a coordinating member and scientific delegate, has allowed me to actively collaborate in the scientific organization of three international symposiums (UCLy 2016; Rome 2018; Beirut 2022). The organization of international conferences and the scientific edition of the proceedings have been creating for some years the basis of a collaboration that further supports my research career.

In parallel, since 2019, I participate in the coordination of the "Islamology" axis within PLURIEL. This collaboration has led to the organization of several study days and colloquia followed by collective publications.