LLC Commons: Kaitlin Vida, Ines Aščerić-Todd and Tasneem Yousef In brief Date - 19 March 2026Venue - Project Room 1.06, 50 George SquareSpeakers - Kaitlin Vida (MSc student, English Literature), Ines Aščerić-Todd (Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies) and Tasneem Yousef (PhD candidate Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies)Theme - Borders, Discourse and Orientalism About the eventJoin us for the next event of the LLC Commons initiative!The session brings together research around the theme of 'Borders, Discourse and Orientalism' and will feature three speakers, Kaitlin Vida, MSc student in English Literature (Literature and Society: Enlightenment, Romantic and Victorian), Ines Aščerić-Todd, Senior Lecturer in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, and Tasneem Yousef, PhD candidate Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. The session will be followed by a Q&A and general discussion. Stay on for an informal pub social after.This space is to build community across the six departments in the School and hold interdisciplinary conversations among research staff and students - so come along!About the speakersKaitlin Vida is an MSc student in English Literature, on the Literature and Society: Enlightenment, Romantic and Victorian programme.Ines Aščerić-Todd joined IMES as Lecturer in Arabic and Middle Eastern Cultures in 2018. She started her university education with a degree in Arabic with Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from Durham, after which she focused her academic interests on Islam and Islamic history in the Ottoman context, which led her to obtain an MPhil in Ottoman Turkish Studies and a DPhil in Oriental Studies, both from the University of Oxford.Before starting her current post in Edinburgh, Dr Aščerić-Todd has worked as an Arabic and Ottoman specialist at Durham University Library, an Islamic and Ottoman manuscripts specialist at Princeton University, and has taught Arab-Islamic history, culture and literature at the American University of Sharjah.Tasneem Yousef is a PhD researcher based in the Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Department at the University of Edinburgh, where she is working on the poetics, potentialities, and affect of Palestinian speculative writing. She completed her MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Culture at the University of York, where she wrote her dissertation on bewilderment as a poetics and affect in the poetry of Kaveh Akbar.She is mainly interested in contemporary poetry and poetics, affect theory, form and genre, and writing from Arab and SWANA diasporas. Outside of academia, she is a writer, editor, and educator, and she was recently an inaugural writer-in-residence at the Mary Ratcliffe Writer's Room in Edinburgh. Her writing can be found in Poetry Online, VIBE, BAHR Magazine, and elsewhere.How to attendThis event is free to attend, and open to all. No registration is required - just show up!About the seriesLLC Commons, coordinated by research colleagues and postgraduate research students, aims to embed work undertaken across the School’s six departments in a supportive seminar series. The initiative responds to calls from staff and students alike who have indicated that they would like more opportunities to share their work and invite feedback. The series aims to build a more integrated research culture among the School community, and to connect researchers across all its departments.Presentations might take a variety of formats: work in progress for conference papers or publications, outline plans for a chapter, a book proposal, or further research or grant plans. Tags Research English and Scottish Literature Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Mar 19 2026 16.00 - 18.00 LLC Commons: Kaitlin Vida, Ines Aščerić-Todd and Tasneem Yousef Join us for another event in the new LLC Commons cross-discipline and cross-departmental events series with Kaitlin Vida (MSc student, English Literature), Ines Aščerić-Todd (Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies) and Tasneem Yousef (PhD candidate in IMES) giving presentations around the theme of 'Borders, Discourse and Orientalism'. Project Room 1.06 50 George Square University of Edinburgh EH8 9LH Find the venue: 50 George Square
LLC Commons: Kaitlin Vida, Ines Aščerić-Todd and Tasneem Yousef In brief Date - 19 March 2026Venue - Project Room 1.06, 50 George SquareSpeakers - Kaitlin Vida (MSc student, English Literature), Ines Aščerić-Todd (Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies) and Tasneem Yousef (PhD candidate Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies)Theme - Borders, Discourse and Orientalism About the eventJoin us for the next event of the LLC Commons initiative!The session brings together research around the theme of 'Borders, Discourse and Orientalism' and will feature three speakers, Kaitlin Vida, MSc student in English Literature (Literature and Society: Enlightenment, Romantic and Victorian), Ines Aščerić-Todd, Senior Lecturer in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, and Tasneem Yousef, PhD candidate Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. The session will be followed by a Q&A and general discussion. Stay on for an informal pub social after.This space is to build community across the six departments in the School and hold interdisciplinary conversations among research staff and students - so come along!About the speakersKaitlin Vida is an MSc student in English Literature, on the Literature and Society: Enlightenment, Romantic and Victorian programme.Ines Aščerić-Todd joined IMES as Lecturer in Arabic and Middle Eastern Cultures in 2018. She started her university education with a degree in Arabic with Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from Durham, after which she focused her academic interests on Islam and Islamic history in the Ottoman context, which led her to obtain an MPhil in Ottoman Turkish Studies and a DPhil in Oriental Studies, both from the University of Oxford.Before starting her current post in Edinburgh, Dr Aščerić-Todd has worked as an Arabic and Ottoman specialist at Durham University Library, an Islamic and Ottoman manuscripts specialist at Princeton University, and has taught Arab-Islamic history, culture and literature at the American University of Sharjah.Tasneem Yousef is a PhD researcher based in the Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Department at the University of Edinburgh, where she is working on the poetics, potentialities, and affect of Palestinian speculative writing. She completed her MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Culture at the University of York, where she wrote her dissertation on bewilderment as a poetics and affect in the poetry of Kaveh Akbar.She is mainly interested in contemporary poetry and poetics, affect theory, form and genre, and writing from Arab and SWANA diasporas. Outside of academia, she is a writer, editor, and educator, and she was recently an inaugural writer-in-residence at the Mary Ratcliffe Writer's Room in Edinburgh. Her writing can be found in Poetry Online, VIBE, BAHR Magazine, and elsewhere.How to attendThis event is free to attend, and open to all. No registration is required - just show up!About the seriesLLC Commons, coordinated by research colleagues and postgraduate research students, aims to embed work undertaken across the School’s six departments in a supportive seminar series. The initiative responds to calls from staff and students alike who have indicated that they would like more opportunities to share their work and invite feedback. The series aims to build a more integrated research culture among the School community, and to connect researchers across all its departments.Presentations might take a variety of formats: work in progress for conference papers or publications, outline plans for a chapter, a book proposal, or further research or grant plans. Tags Research English and Scottish Literature Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Mar 19 2026 16.00 - 18.00 LLC Commons: Kaitlin Vida, Ines Aščerić-Todd and Tasneem Yousef Join us for another event in the new LLC Commons cross-discipline and cross-departmental events series with Kaitlin Vida (MSc student, English Literature), Ines Aščerić-Todd (Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies) and Tasneem Yousef (PhD candidate in IMES) giving presentations around the theme of 'Borders, Discourse and Orientalism'. Project Room 1.06 50 George Square University of Edinburgh EH8 9LH Find the venue: 50 George Square
Mar 19 2026 16.00 - 18.00 LLC Commons: Kaitlin Vida, Ines Aščerić-Todd and Tasneem Yousef Join us for another event in the new LLC Commons cross-discipline and cross-departmental events series with Kaitlin Vida (MSc student, English Literature), Ines Aščerić-Todd (Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies) and Tasneem Yousef (PhD candidate in IMES) giving presentations around the theme of 'Borders, Discourse and Orientalism'.
