09.10.2009
"Enthusiasm is the most beautiful word on earth"
Aleya Abdallah Khattab from Egypt is a professor of German Studies. (© private)
In Arabia, Professor Aleya Abdallah Khattab is not just any specialist in German Studies, she is the most internationally renowned representative of her profession. Educated at the German School in Cairo she graduated with a PhD from the
Universities of Mannheim and
Heidelberg in Germany and has represented the field of German Studies all over the world in many different positions.
She is currently a professor of German Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy at Cairo University. In parallel, she is the first vice president of the International Association for Germanic Studies (IVG). From 2002 to 2005 Professor Aleya Abdallah Khattab lived in Berlin where she was responsible for academic relations between Egypt and Germany as counsellor for cultural affairs and head of the educational mission of the Arabian Embassy.
Professor Khattab regards her special role as acting as an ambassador between cultures. “My heart still belongs to the dialogue of cultures, regardless of religion”, Aleya Khattab says, “which is precisely what I experienced as a student at the German School in Cairo”. Since 2006 she has also been deputy president of the society for intercultural German Studies. "Enthusiasm is the most beautiful word on earth", she believes along with the German poet Christian Morgenstern († 1914).
As a scholar who decided at a very early stage to be a working mother she pursues a very broad range of interests: She has supervised student projects in Egypt and Germany on cognitive verbs and the comparison of adjuncts as well as projects on “Women in Literature” or “Aspects of Social Criticism in the Work of Erich Kästner”. Her own publications include "The Image of Arabia in the Work of Wilhelm Hauff", “Parceval” or the "Language of Love. Language of Nature." Her latest oeuvre "The Faustian Woman in Arabic Literature" is particularly apt for Aleya Khattab given her own dedication to knowledge. As guest professor i.e. in Berlin, Heidelberg, Jena, Graz or Vienna, she also has many years of experience working in contemporary fields in university institutions in Germany and Austria.
On December 7 2009, Professor Aleya Abdallah Khattab will be awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit.
