Amman, May 3 – The Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation Forum, Arab Bank’s arm for cultural and social responsibility, will host tomorrow, Monday, at 6:30 p.m., the Iraqi thinker, critic, and academic Dr. Abdullah Ibrahim in a lecture titled “Narrative and Cultural Identity.” The discussion will be conducted by critic and writer Fakhri Saleh.
Narrative plays a key role in shaping shared awareness. Stories and novels help form how we see ourselves and others, preserve collective memory, and either strengthen or challenge ideas of belonging. During times of major change, narrative also highlights how different identities and perspectives intersect, making cultural questions more important than ever.
Narrative can show how stories interact with culture. It can become a space for symbolic struggle or for imagining new understandings of the Arab self beyond predefined ideas, in a world full of conflicting narratives.
Among the most prominent works of Dr. Ibrahim, who specializes in narrative and cultural studies and is an expert in literary studies at Iraqi, Libyan, and Qatari universities, is the book “The Encyclopedia of Arabic Narrative,” published in nine volumes. He is a contributing researcher to the global encyclopedia Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, a fellow of the Sangalli Institute for Cultural Studies in Florence, Italy, and a member of the Scientific Committee of the Granada Institute for Research and Graduate Studies. He is also a member of numerous award juries, including: the Sheikh Zayed Book Award (Abu Dhabi), the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the Arabic Booker, London), the Tayeb Salih Award (Khartoum), the Children’s Literature Award (Doha), and the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel (Doha). Additionally, he is a member of several scientific boards of research centers and academic journals at Arab universities, has supervised and participated in many cultural conferences across the Arab world, and has numerous peer-reviewed research papers published in refereed journals.
Dr. Ibrahim has received many awards, most notably the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation Award for Arab Scientists (1997), the Sheikh Zayed Book Award (2013), the King Faisal International Prize for Arabic Language and Literature (2014), and the Sultan bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Award in Literary Studies and Criticism (2023).
It is worth noting that the Abdul Hameed Shoman Cultural Forum was established in 1986 to serve as a beacon of culture and creativity in Jordan and the Arab world. Through Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation’s efforts to provide a wide audience with opportunities to engage with scientists, thinkers, writers, poets, artists, politicians, economic and educational experts, and distinguished creatives, the forum enables them to discuss their ideas and share their creativity through weekly lectures and seminars that contribute to enriching cultural life in Jordan and the Arab world.