Associate ProfessorLucia Sorbera

Dr Lucia Sorbera is an Associate Professor in Arabic, Islamic and Middle East Studies at the University of Sydney, where she serves as Chair of the Discipline of Arabic Language and Cultures. Her work focuses on the modern and contemporary history of West Asia and North Africa, with particular attention to women, gender, and sexuality.

She holds a PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where her dissertation on Egyptian and Italian women’s movements in the interwar period received the Italian Society of Women Historians’ award for best thesis in women and gender history. Her academic journey includes teaching positions at the Universities of Macerata, Milano La Statale, and Verona, as well as a Master in Migration Studies from Ca' Foscari University in Venice, a Master in Intercultural Studies from the University of Padova, and extensive research periods in Italy, Lebanon, and Egypt.

Dr Sorbera has held prestigious fellowships at the University of Bologna, the CUNY Graduate Center, the European University Institute, the University of Bergamo, the University of Macerata, and at the University of Sydney’s Laureate Program in International History.

Her research also extends to sub‑Saharan Africa, where she collaborates with refugee artists and local NGOs in Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana on issues relating to archives, memory, trauma, and forced displacement.