Sarali

Gintsburg

I am a Ramón y Cajal Fellow at the Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and the Near East (ILC-CSIC), specializing in Arabic philology and Islamic Studies. My research is shaped by a broad philological approach inspired by earlier generations of scholars who combined the study of language, literature, history, religion, and culture within the wider field of Arabic and Islamic Studies. Drawing on a strong classical training in Arabic philology, I work on a wide range of topics related to Standard Arabic, Arabic dialectology, Islamic thought, literature, identity formation, and cultural narratives, while also engaging with contemporary approaches in the humanities, particularly cognitive linguistics, multimodal analysis, narrative studies, and digital humanities. A significant part of my work focuses on socially engaged topics connected with intercultural communication, identity construction, and Moroccan communities in Spain and Europe.

Before joining the CSIC, I worked as a researcher at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), University of Navarra (2017–2025). I also taught Arabic language, Arabic literature, and related subjects at the Russian Christian Academy for the Humanities in Saint Petersburg, and later taught Cultural Anthropology at the University of Houston–Clear Lake (USA). I received my PhD from Tilburg University, a Licentiate degree in Arabic Philology and Islamic Studies from the Institute for Asian and African Studies (University of Helsinki), and graduated cum laude with an M.A. in Arabic Philology and Islamic Studies from Saint Petersburg State University. My academic work has developed in multilingual and international contexts, and I work professionally in Russian, Arabic (both Standard Arabic and Moroccan Arabic), English, Spanish and French.

Throughout my career, I have led and participated in several international and interdisciplinary research projects focused on identity, intercultural communication, and Moroccan communities in Spain and Europe. I served as Principal Investigator of projects funded by the Government of Navarra and the Institute for Culture and Society (MYOUROPE) and as national coordinator of the Erasmus+ project CoMMiTTEd (KA227). Currently, I also participate as a member of the research team in the Ministry-funded project AlterMagreb. Previously, I was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship for the project OFRORCREA (European Commission, 2017–2019), dedicated to creativity in oral and transitional poetic traditions.

I co-supervise two doctoral researchers and serve on the editorial board of DiGeSt. Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies (Ghent University), as well as on the advisory board of the Routledge Handbooks of Language Learning in the Global Context. I regularly act as an expert evaluator for the European Commission and for national and international research funding programmes and promotion committees in Europe and beyond.

My current research focuses on Muslim cultural codes and the intersections between religion, literature, and cultural identity in the Arabo-Islamic world. In September 2026, I will launch the project Reading Muslim Cultural Code: Case Study One. Moroccan Literature (MoMuLit) (Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Consolidación Investigadora, CNS2025-165915), which explores how Moroccan literary texts — oral and written, in both Standard Arabic and Moroccan Arabic — reflect and transmit Muslim cultural identities. The project combines approaches from Arabic philology, semiotics, literary theory, and digital humanities to develop new perspectives on cultural and religious knowledge in literary production.