Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

Category: 5in10

Scholarship reflects positionalities of discipline, location and context. 5in10 is an interview format that introduces scholars and contextualizes their research interests through 5 questions answered in less than 10 minutes reading time.

A person wearing blue gloves is holding a poster with Arabic text and an image of wheat.

5in10 / EUME

Food is Where all my Interests Meet – 5in10 with Omri Polatsek

Omri Polatsek is a historian of science, technology, and the environment, with a regional focus on Egypt and the Middle East. He is a doctoral student at the International Max Planck Research School “Knowledge and Its Resources: Historical Reciprocities” at the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte and a researcher at the “History of Technology” Department at the Technische Universität Berlin. Before joining EUME, Omri was an affiliated researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient. He holds an MA in Global History from Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and a BA in Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science from Tel Aviv University.

A man with a mustache and brown glasses wearing a white shirt.

5in10 / re:constitution

Mobility is also humility ‒ 5in10 with Yann Lorans

Yann Lorans studied European Union law at the Universities of Montpellier, Lund, Paris-Est Créteil, and at the College of Europe (Bruges). After an internship at the Court of Justice of the European Union in the cabinet of Advocate General Michal Bobek, he began a joint PhD at Université Paris-Est and KU Leuven. He defended his thesis on the collaborative relationship between the European judiciary and legislature in the field of fundamental rights. Alongside his research, he was a guest researcher at Lund University and has taught constitutional theory, French public law and EU law at Université Paris-Est Créteil, KU Leuven, Sciences Po Paris, and Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas. Since 2025, he has been working on the defence of democracy through EU media regulation as a re:constitution fellow, including research stays at the European Commission (Brussels) and NOVA School of Law (Lisbon).

A black and white photograph showing a woman with light hair and a white shirt.

5in10 / re:constitution

A Liberal Society Stands or Falls with its Conception of Equality – 5in10 with Meret Plucis

Meret Plucis completed her legal education at Humboldt University Berlin, Panthéon- Assas University in Paris (LLM), and the University of Amsterdam (LLM). Early on during her studies, she developed a focus on European Union law. With her re:constitution fellowship, Meret Plucis returns to a more applied angle: examining how gender equality is strategically reinterpreted in retirement and labor law, connecting constitutional theory with on-the-ground legal realities. Her professional and personal interests are centered around feminist issues.

A woman with long dark hair holding a microphone.

5in10 / EUME

“There is no way to look a conspiracy theory in the eye” – 5in10 with Aya Labanieh

Aya Labanieh is a scholar of empire, conspiracy, media, and memory culture. She received her PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and is presently a fellow at Columbia University’s Narrative Intelligence Lab and a research affiliate with the EUME research program’s project SYRASP at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin. Her work contends with the intertwinement of conspiracy, memory, and power in Anglophone and Arabophone literatures and mediaspheres—spanning genres of dystopian science fiction, radical Internet subcultures, and the memoirs of agents and spies.

A group of children looking up towards a photographer.

5in10 / EUME

“Maybe we should start by admitting the truth” – 5in10 with Eli Osheroff

Eli Osheroff is a historian of the modern Middle East, with a focus on Arab political and intellectual history and the Arab-Zionist conflict. He holds a PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Truman Institute, at the Jacob Robinson Institute at the Hebrew University, and in the Dan David Society of Fellows at Tel Aviv University. His first book, based on his doctoral dissertation, is forthcoming from the Van Leer Institute and deals with Arab political imagination from the late Ottoman period to 1948. The book focuses on Arab visions for an independent Palestine and the place of Jewish settlers in the future Arab state. Eli’s articles have appeared in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, the Israel-Palestine Review, and other venues.

Portrait of a person with short hair and glasses.

5in10 / Imagining Futures – Dealing with Disparity / MECAM

Machtat of Kerkenah: An Empowering Motherly Continuum and Cultural Heritage – 5in10 with Souhir Zekri

Souhir Zekri holds a PhD in English Studies from the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland) and currently teaches at the Higher Institute of Digital Engineering of Tunis (University of Tunis). Her main research areas include life writing theory, motherhood and gender studies, the Italian Diaspora in Scotland, and spatial theory. She also writes short stories and first-person testimonies in relation to gender and harassment. In the academic year 2025–26, Souhir is a MECAM Fellow, working on her project on traditional women singers in Tunisia.

Dalia Halabi in a red blouse, listening and taking notes during an event.

5in10 / EUME

“Gaining Access was a Major Challenge” – 5in10 with Dalia Halabi

Dalia Halabi is a sociologist of education who adopts a “study up” approach to critically examine educational and social disparities. She holds a PhD in Leadership and Policy in Education from the University of Haifa and an MA in Conflict Management and Mediation from Tel Aviv University. Her doctoral research explored the formation of elite identity among Palestinian students and alumni of private schools in Israel, analyzing how educational experiences shape distinction, belonging, and social trajectories within a context of national marginalization.

Portrait of Wendy Doyon.

5in10 / EUME

“I’m fascinated by language in all its facets” – 5in10 with Wendy Doyon

Wendy Doyon is a historian of modern Egypt and Egyptology. She received her PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021 and is currently revising her dissertation for a book entitled Empire of Dust: State, Labor, and Archaeology in Nineteenth-century Egypt. She was a CAORC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the American Research Center in Egypt 2022–2024, and she co-directs the Arabic Excavation Archive from Quft project at Harvard University. Her research focuses primarily on French, English, and Arabic sources in archaeological archives from Egypt and Sudan and she writes on the history of archaeology from both Egyptian and multicultural/global perspectives. In the academic year 2024/25, she is a EUME Fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien.

5in10 / Imagining Futures – Dealing with Disparity / MECAM

Navigating Inequalities: Locating Agency in the Margins and International Aid – 5in10 with Fabrizio Leonardo Cuccu

Fabrizio Leonardo Cuccu is a Alumni Research Fellow at the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM), Tunisia and a Research Assistant at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland. His research focuses on security, development and migration policies in postcolonial settings. He has published articles in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, L’Année du Maghreb and Surveillance & Society.

5in10 / re:constitution

“Civil Disobedience is Not a New Phenomenon” — 5in10 with Philipp Schönberger

Philipp Schönberger studied International Relations in Dresden and Law at the Humboldt University of Berlin. After his second state examination in February 2022, he started working for the environmental law NGO Green Legal Impact Germany e.V. in Berlin as a legal advisor for climate policy and the protection of climate activists. At the same time, he works as a freedom of information lawyer for the transparency initiative FragDenStaat, focusing on access to environmental information. Since 2019, he has been coordinating a litigation project against the violation of migrants’ human rights at the EU’s external borders, successfully representing more than fifty applicants before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in both interim measures and ordinary proceedings. Previous work experiences include stays at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and two law firms specializing in climate litigation.