Chadi Kahwaji
Chadi Kahwaji is a lecturer-researcher in Arabic language and literature at the Institute of Oriental Letters (ILO) of Saint-Joseph University of Beirut (USJ) since 2023.
Holder of a doctorate in Arabic language and literature from USJ, he defended his thesis under the supervision of Antoine Sayyah on « The crisis of Lebanese identity between linear time and eternal return: a study of narrative discourse based on the works Yūsuf al-Inglīzī and Sharīd al-Manāzil ». His research focuses on discourse analysis, literary semiotics, and questions of identity in contemporary Arabic literature. He has notably published on linguistic plurality in the Lebanese novel (Rashid al-Daïf, Farjallah Hayek), on the narrative representation of the history of Eastern Christians, and on teaching Arabic to heritage speakers.
He also teaches at the American University of Beirut (CAMES programme, 2023) and serves as proofreader and scientific editor at the Centre for Documentation and Research on Arab Christianity (CEDRAC) of USJ since 2014, as well as for the journals Annales de l’Institut de Lettres Orientales and Āfāq wa-Siyāqāt. He contributes to the development of Arabic textbooks for international university teaching, in collaboration with Georgetown University Qatar and Habib Publishing.
Winner of the Sharjah Prize for Young Lebanese Poets and recipient of a certificate of merit from the University of Balamand for his contributions to the Arabic Poetry Festival, he is also a member of the editorial board of Āfāq wa-Siyāqāt, published by the Faculty of Religious Sciences of USJ.
At the Pluriel Congress in Cordoba in February 2026, he delivered a paper entitled : « Discourse semiotics in the badīʿiyya school: manifestations of ethics in artistic aesthetics ».
Resources related to
Discourse Analysis - Hermeneutics
article
The grammar of sacred violence: A critical discourse analysis of radical Islamist writings
- Mohamed-Ali Mostfa
This article offers a discursive analysis of two contemporary Islamist texts that present violence not as a deviation from religious normativity, but as its necessary, even redemptive expression. I...
videos
From word to virtue: Ibn Ḥazm and the aesthetics of discourse
Paper presented at the 5th international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Isla...
publication
Sayyid Qutb. Architect of Radical Islamism
- Mounia Ait Kabboura
The thought of Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) has profoundly shaped a wide range of religio-political movements, from the Muslim Brotherhood to Salafi-jihadists, radicalizing political Islam and inspiring...
videos
The Foundations of Arabic Grammatical Theory
Cairo. In a lecture delivered in Arabic on Saturday, January 25, 2025, at the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies (IDEO) in Cairo, Professor Ramzi Baalbaki, holder of the Chair of Arabic...
publication
Speaking freely in Islam
- Hamadi Redissi
What is the Islamic doctrine of blasphemy, insult to God, religion and the Prophet? What about the prohibition of figurative representation of Muhammad? Can one openly believe or abjure in Islam? T...
article
The Genre of the Mawlid Narrative in the mid-12th h./18th Century as Exemplified by al-Barzanjī
- Antonio Cuciniello
Among the works of Arabic literature concerning the genre of Mawlid, certainly al-Barzanjī’s Mawlid is a text that has achieved great popularity and spread to large parts of the Islamic world. Inde...
videos
The History of the Quran according to Muslim Sources
- Gabriel Said Reynolds
Professors Shady Nasser from Harvard and Gabriel Reynolds from the University of Notre Dame explore the history of the revelation and compilation of the Quran according to traditional Muslim source...
publication
Revival and Dynamics of Islamic Studies in Europe
- Michel Younès
- Emmanuel Pisani
- Cédric Baylocq
- Zohra Aziadé Zemirli
- Michele Brignone
- Haoues Seniguer
“In a troubled international context where Islam is sometimes defined as an ideological marker of many conflicts, academic research drawing on history, sociology, and political science has mu...