About

Luma Balaa

Associate Professor of English Studies

Dr. Luma Balaa is an associate Professor of English Studies in the Department of Communication, Arts and Languages.

Research Interests

Her research interests include fairytales, Anglophone Lebanese Australian writers, women’s writings, feminism and representations of women in Cinema. She is the author of several international refereed articles.

SDGs Research Mapping

Dr. Luma Balaa conducts research relevant to the following SDGs:

Selected Publications

Selected articles in international and refereed journals:

  1. Balaa, Luma (2023) “The Madness of Women as an Illusional Power in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Fadia Faqir’s Pillars of Salt,” Journal of International Women’s Studies: Vol. 25: Iss. 7, Article 6. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol25/iss7/6
  2. Balaa, Luma (2022) “Our Fluttering Stranger,” Journal of International Women’s Studies: Vol. 24: Iss. 1, Article 32. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol24/iss1/32
  3. Balaa, Luma (2021). Who are you? Journal of International Women’s Studies, 22(5), 478-479. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol22/iss5/32
  4. Balaa, Luma. (2021). Adiza. New Writing, The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing 20/9/9 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14790726.2021.1970191
  5. Balaa, Luma (2021). The Chronotope of the House and Feminist Matrilinealism in Nada Awar Jarrar’s Somewhere, Home. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 22(1), 70-82. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol22/iss1/4
  6. Balaa, Luma (2020). Writing the Body as Subversion in Alexandra Chreiteh’s Always Coca-Cola. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 21(6), 284-295. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol21/iss6/17
  7. Balaa, Luma (2019). Framed: The Door Swings Both Ways in the Lebanese Movie Caramel Directed by Nadine Labaki, Produced by Anne-Dominique Toussaint; Written by Nadine Lebaki, Rodney El Haddad, Jihad Hoiely. Sunnyland Films, Lebanon, May 2007. Running time 96 minutes. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 20(7), 430-447. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol20/iss7/31
  8. Balaa, Luma (2018). El Saadawi Does Not Orientalize the Other in Woman at Point Zero. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 19(6), 236-253. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol19/iss6/15
  9. Balaa, Luma (2018). Exploring Thirdspace in Nada Awar Jarrar’s Unsafe Heaven. Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/ New Zealand Literature Vol. 32: Iss. 1, Article 26. Available at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/antipodes/vol32/iss1/26
  10. Balaa, Luma (2015). Review of book: Hout, Syrine. Post-war Anglophone Lebanese Fiction: Home Matters in the Diaspora.” Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Hardcover”. Ariel Journal: A Review of International English Literature. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/576077
  11. Balaa, Luma (2015). Exile, Return and Nationalism in A Goodland. Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/ New Zealand Literature., 29(25),91-104. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/antipodes/vol29/iss1/
  12. Balaa, Luma. (2014) Why insanity is not subversive in Hanan Al-Shaykh’s Short Story Season of Madness. Australian Feminist Studies Journal.29 (82),480-499. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08164649.2014.990776
  13. Balaa, Luma (2013). Misuse of Islam in El-Saadawi’s God Dies by the Nile from a feminist perspective. Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 11(2&3). http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15692086-12341247
  14. Balaa, Luma (2013).Men’s Contradictory Experiences of Power in Jarrar’s novel Dreams of Water.Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/ New Zealand Literature, 27 (2), 205-211. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13110/antipodes.27.2.0205?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
  15. Balaa, Luma (2012). Children’s Response to Hoodwinked, the movie. Looking Glass Journal: New Perspectives in Children’s Literature, 16 (2). http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/tlg/article/view/319/316
  16. Balaa, Luma (2012). The comic disruption of stereotypes in Loubna Haikal’s Seducing Mr Maclean. Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/ New Zealand Literature, 26(2),173-180. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41958057?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
  17. Diab, Rula L. & Balaa, Luma (2011). Developing Detailed Rubrics for Assessing Critique Writing: Impact on EFL University Students’ Performance and Attitudes. TESOL Journal, 2 (1), 52-72. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.5054/tj.2011.244132/pdf

Academic Degrees

  • Doctorate in English Studies, Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland
  • Post-doctoral (post-graduate) diploma in Applied Linguistics and TESOL, Leicester University, England
  • MA in Contemporary Literary Studies, Lancaster University, England
  • BA and Teaching Diploma, American University of Beirut, Lebanon