Featured Speakers’ Bios:
Keynote Speaker:
Jaafar Aksikas is President and CEO of the Institute of Global Arab Media, Democracy and Culture. He is also professor of cultural studies and humanities at Columbia College Chicago, where he chaired both the Cultural Studies Program (2009-2013) and the Humanities Division (2006-2008). He was also most recently President of the Cultural Studies Association (2014-2016). His books and edited volumes include Cultural Studies in Practice; Cultural Studies and the Juridical Turn (2016); Cultural Studies of/and the Law (2014); Arab Modernities: Islamism, Nationalism, and Liberalism in the Post-Colonial Arab World(2009) and The Sirah of Antar: An Interpretation of Arab and Islamic History (2002). He is also Editor of the Cultural Studies and Marxism book series. He currently lives in Chicago.
Other Featured Speakers:
Renee Tadros is the Creative Director and founder of RST Creatives, a multicultural advertising firm in Chicago and Los Angeles. As a professional with 19+ years of diverse international experience design in both agency and in-house environments. Prior to RST Creatives, Renee spent time as a creative lead at notable firms such as Leo Burnett and Foote Cone Belding putting in a combined tenure of 5 years in the large digital agency environment. Renee worked on multiple global businesses including Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, leading multiple user-centered initiatives for clients such as Dr. Pepper /7 Up, AOL, Johnson & Johnson and P&G. She is an educator and an interdisciplinary artist, as well as a strong advocate for social justice and gender equality in the state and abroad. Her body of work examines the religious rituals of women, their spiritual role models, how they engage feminism and how their religion establishes agency and authority in their lives. Investigating the daily lives of women, their roles as mothers, daughters, wives, career women and how they manage with shame. The idea of “power” creates a narrative in female and male relationships and how our faith plays a role, while exploring gender and religious divide. Renee teaches courses on art, design and cultural studies and holds a Masters of Arts in Interdisciplinary Art and Cultural Studies from Columbia College Chicago and a BFA (cum laude ) in Visual Communication from Northern Illinois University. She currently resides in the Greater LA area!
Mohamed Mifdal is an associate professor at Chouaib Doukkali University in El Jadida, Morocco. He has extensive experience in the field of English Language Teaching. His current research interests include literary and digital satire. He is author of two books, one on postmodern satire and the other on digital satire and social media, several articles, and a book chapter on the power of satire (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2015).
Karima Bouziane is Assistant Professor of Business English and Communication at the National School of Commerce and Management (ENCG), Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida, Morocco. She holds a Doctorate Degree in Translation and Intercultural Studies from Chouaib Doukkali University. She is Editor-in-Chief of The International Arab Journal of English for Specific Purposes (IAJESP). She is a member of Le Laboratoire d’Études et de Recherches sur l’Interculturel (LERIC) and of Le Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches en Sciences Economiques et de Management (LERSEM), ENCG at the same university. She is author of Understanding the Moroccan Consumer: Insights to Control the Way Consumers Experience and Relate to Brands (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2017); Think-Aloud Protocols of Novice and Professional Translators: Monologue versus Dialogue Protocols (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2014); and Cultural Transfer in the Translation of Advertising from English into Arabic (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2013). Her areas of interest span a number of areas, including translation studies and intercultural communication; teaching English for specific purposes; business communication; and new media and advertising.
Mohamed Abdou is currently an EFL instructor at the American Language Center (ALC) in Casablanca, Morocco. He is also in charge of designing programs for advanced-level courses, with a special focus on the introduction of culture into the ALC syllabus. Mohamed Abdou holds a Diplôme d’études spécialisées (DES) from the Faculty of Education in Rabat; he has also received the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching after carrying out research at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, where he studied ways and techniques to introduce culture in an EFL teaching environment. His current research interests include constraints on pragmatic competence in a foreign language and social media as a tool for social and political change.
