Special Issue of The Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication (MEJCC)
Co-edited by Driss Ksikes (Director, HEM Research Center) and Tarik Sabry (University of Westminster, CAMRI)
The HEM Research Center is proud to announce the launch of a Call for Papers for a forthcoming special issue of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication (MEJCC), co-edited by Driss Ksikes, Director of the Center and Coordinator of the Fatema Mernissi Chair on “Gender, Youth and Cultural Issues”, and Tarik Sabry, Professor at the University of Westminster and member of the same Chair.
Issue Title : Fatema Mernissi, Abdelkebir Khatibi and the Plural Digital Maghreb
This special issue seeks to revisit and expand the intellectual legacies of Fatema Mernissi and Abdelkebir Khatibi, two pioneering Moroccan thinkers whose plural and critically universalist visions have profoundly shaped cultural and intellectual debates across the Maghreb and beyond.
Going beyond traditional biographical and interpretative approaches, this issue aims to open new conceptual horizons for reimagining culture, society, and politics in a digitally mediated Maghreb. It will explore how the work of Mernissi and Khatibi inspires contemporary reflections on plurality, double critique, borders (houdoud), travel as metaphor, and weaving as connection, while engaging with the digital transformations reshaping the region.
The issue will introduce innovative analytical frameworks that rethink Mernissi and Khatibi’s thought in relation to current questions about gender, love, digitality, activism, decoloniality, and what it means to be human in the 21st-century Maghreb.
- Mernissi/Khatibi and digital culture in the Maghreb
- Love and sexuality between physical and virtual spaces
- Activism, Generation Z and critical engagement
- Decoloniality and new forms of critique
- Memory, imagination and cultural mediation
- Being human in the contemporary Maghreb
Submission Details
Abstract deadline: December 20, 2025
Please submit a 300-word abstract (subject line: MEJCC Special Issue) to:
sabryt@westminster.ac.uk [2]and driss.ksikes@lcieducation.com [3]
Full paper deadline: June 29, 2026
Articles (6,000–7,000 words) will undergo a peer-review process by expert reviewers from MEJCC. Full style guidelines will be shared upon acceptance of the abstract.
Guest Editors
Director of the HEM Research Center and Associate Dean of Research and Academic Innovation at HEM Rabat. He is the coordinator of the Fatema Mernissi Chair on “Gender, Youth and Cultural Issues.” His work bridges the fields of media, culture, and the arts. Ksikes has led major studies on Morocco’s Cultural and Creative Industries (2021, 2024) and coordinated regional research on performing arts in the Arab world for AFAC (2022–2024).
Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Westminster and member of CAMRI (Communication and Media Research Institute). He is also a member of the Fatema Mernissi Chair and co-founder of the MEJCC. His latest book, Decolonising Approaches to Users and Audiences in the Global South (Routledge, 2026), explores new critical methodologies for media and cultural research.