Moroccan Cultural Studies

This article presents a critical examination of the challenges associated with grounding Moroccan cultural studies ( MCS ) in Moroccan academia. Drawing on their diverse experiences as teachers and researchers, the authors examine the institutional and epistemological constraints that underlie the historical marginalization of cultural studies within the Moroccan university system. These constraints range from Eurocentric curricula, a bureaucratic inertia that has resisted innovation and interdisciplinarity, and the instrumentalization of English as primarily a language rather than a vehicle of thought, to new interdisciplinary formations such as cultural studies. The authors offer a critical reflection on the Moroccan university as an epistemic battlefield where the production of knowledge must be geared towards local languages, subaltern histories (including gender politics), and cultural forms without capitulating to nationalist or essentialist closures. Drawing inspiration from Moroccan sociologist Abdelkabir Khatibi, the authors propose a new pedagogy grounded in critical reflexivity that highlights the politics of knowledge production and the situatedness of the academic subject. This article proposes that the new Moroccan cultural studies act as a space of intellectual and political experimentation by urging MCS practitioners to embrace historicization, incompleteness and interdisciplinarity as foundations for their methodological explorations and practice.