Daniela Merolla
E-mail: D.Merolla@Let.Leidenuniv.nl
Phone Work: + 31 (0)71-527 2240
Phone Home: +31(0)20-6945456l
Office Location: van Wijkplaats 4, building 1166, room 101b
Office Hours: Mondays 15.00 - 17.00
Daniela Merolla lectures African Literatures at the Department of African Languages and Cultures, Leiden University, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on African oral literary productions as well as on written literatures in African and European languages. Due to her double specialization in Intercultural Comparative Literature and in Anthropology of Religions, she developed her own interdisciplinary approach to the vast domain of African cultural productions. She has done research and extensively published in literary and anthropological approaches to gender, ethnicity and narrativity in (North) Africa and in African immigrant artistic productions in Europe. She has taught courses at several international institutions (University of Leiden, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris, La Sapienza 1st University of Rome, University of Venice, Oriental Institute of Naples).
Teaching: See TCA - Dept. of African Languages and Cultures Website http://www.hum.leidenuniv.nl/tca and ICD - Istitute for Culture Disciplines http://hum.leiden.edu/icd/members-modern-contemporary
International Projects: See African Literatures Website
Research area: North Africa (Berber minorities, Algeria, Morocco), West and East Africa, and African immigrant communities in Europe.
Research interests: Oral literature, myths, novels, theatre, films, virtual reality, artistic productions, immigrant literatures in Dutch, English, French and Italian, anthropological and literary readings of narratives, ethnicity, gender, identity.
Present research: African Languages and Oral Literatures DVD Documentation and Digital Materials. African Migrant Art on the Net and in the Netherlands: Local Cultural Traditions, Transnationalism, and Identity.
Previous research:De l’art de la narration tamazight (berbère). 200 cents ans d'études : état des lieux et perspectives, Éditions Peeters, Paris, Louvain, 2006. See also the site of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
Read online: De Berberse kwestie in Noord Afrika en in Nederland
Selected Publications
2009. Transcultural Modernities, Narrating Africa in Europe, Elisabeth Bekers, Sissy Helff and Daniela Merolla (Eds.), Rodopi, Amsterdam. Forhcoming.
2008. Oralité et nouvelles dimensions de l’Oralité. Intersections théoriques et comparaisons des matériaux dans les études africains, Mena Lafkioui et Daniela Merolla (éds.), Publications Langues O’, Paris.
2006. Merolla, D. De l’art de la narration tamazight (berbère). 200 cents ans d'études : état des lieux et perspectives, Éditions Peeters, Paris, Louvain. 2005. Merolla, D., Migrant Websites, WebArt, and Digital Imagination, Edited and Introduced by Sandra Ponzanesi / Edited and Introduced by Daniela Merolla, Lexington Books, USA.
2005. Merolla, D., Migrant Websites, WebArt, and Digital Imagination, Migrant Cartographies: New Cultural and Literary Spaces in Post-Colonial Europe, Edited and Introduced by Sandra Ponzanesi / Edited and Introduced by Daniela Merolla, Lexington Books, USA.
2003. Merolla, D., Appropriation and invention of ethnographical knowledge in the Maghreb, Meridione - sud e nord del mondo, e. Maury (Ed.), Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Naples, Anno III, Numnero 1-2, gennaio-aprile, pp. 133-148.
2003. Merolla D. et M. Lafkioui, El Arte de contar cuentos en el Rif (traducción G.G.-N.S.C.), Introducción, Cuentos populaires del Rif, Z.Boughaba Maleem, Miriguano Ediciones, Madrid, pp. I-XV.
2002. Merolla, D., Digital Imagination and the ‘Landscapes of Group Identities’: Berber Diaspora and the Flourishing of Theatre, Video's, and Amazigh-Net, The Journal of North African Studies, Winter 2002: 122-131.
2002. Lafkioui, M., et Merolla, D., Les contes berbères chaouis d’après Gustave Mercier, Küppe, Germany, book.
2002. Merolla, D., Deceitful Origins and Dogget Roots: Dutch Literary Space and Moroccan Immigration, Forging New European frontiers: Transnational Families and Their Global Networks, D.Bryceson and U.Vuorela (Eds.), Berg, Oxford/New York, pp.103-123.
2001. Merolla, D., Questioning Gender, Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Maghreb, Race, Gender & Class, An Interdisciplinary and Multicultural Journal, Vol.8, No.3: 70-101.
1995. Merolla, D., Peut-on parler d'un espace littéraire kabyle?, Études et Documents berbères, 13: 5-25
Other Selected Activities
2006: Organization of the conference Transcultural Modernities, Narrating Africa in Europe, Frankfurt University Germany, 1-3 June, together with Elisabeth Bekers (University of Antwerp, Belgium) and Sissy Helff (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany) The website of the Narrating Africa in Europe Network is at :http://www.nelk-frankfurt.de/euro-afric/home.htm.
2003 / 2005: Organization, together with Prof. Dr. W.J.J. Schipper de Leeuw, of the international conference series ‘Creation Stories and Mythologies: New Questions and Comparative Approaches’ in the framework of the NWO programme ‘Internationalisation of Research Schools’ (in cooperation with SOAS, London, UK).
See: http://www.creationmyths.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3?m=1&c=3
http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/33/RR_MD.pdf
http://www.soas.ac.uk/Religions/gender_myth/abstracts.htm