College
A Career Pivot:
Trading British Classics for Moroccan Art
By Diane Couzens | Spring 2026
Instagram posts, short films and creative writing focused on North Africa – for someone who spent a large part of his career writing about British Gothic literature, this is a 180-degree turn.
A cat in a book stall in Rabat’s medina during Daffron’s visit in January 2024.
Ramapo College Literature Professor Benjamin Eric Daffron, currently based in Marrakech, Morocco teaching at Cadi Ayyad University as part of the prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar program, once focused his scholarship and teaching on authors such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley. A few years ago, he underwent what he describes as a “radical transformation” in his research pursuits. “During the (COVID-19) lockdown, I sought to make sense of what was happening to and around me… As I wrote my way through and out of lockdown, I composed essays that blended the personal with the theoretical, something altogether unprecedented in my career.”
This type of writing and scholarship not only was new to Daffron but also to the world of contemporary literature. Daffron’s research has focused on autotheory, an emerging genre in the literary scene. Described as “the chimera of research and imagination” (Arianne Zwartjes, “Autotheory as Rebellion,” Michigan Quarterly Review), the genre blends personal narrative with scholarly reflection. Daffron has introduced this new genre to Ramapo through a new senior seminar course for English and Literary Studies majors called Autotheory: Critical Reflections on Life, in which students examined the genre through memoirs, essays and more and used it to surface topics ranging from sexuality and race to language and affect. This blend reflects Ramapo’s distinction as a public liberal arts college – the interdisciplinary nature of critical inquiry.
In January 2023, Daffron experienced what he calls “a watershed moment”: his first visit to Morocco. “That trip ignited a love for the country that found expression in a series of creative and critical pieces, in particular travel memoirs, as well as translations from French to English of stories.” He returned in an almost addictive manner, traveling there four more times in the next two years. “Something about the Marrakshi way of life kept summoning me,” Daffron writes in “Marrakech’s Medina: ‘A Simple Path of Reading,’” published in Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature.
“That trip ignited a love for the country that found expression in a series of creative and critical pieces, in particular travel memoirs, as well as translations from French to English of stories.”
— Benjamin Eric Daffron
From that point, his scholarship output on Moroccan literature, film, photography and other artistic forms was almost feverish. “My desire was to make sense of my nascent relationship to this fascinating country.” He wrote an article that reads like a short story but is really a criticism of a film by Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani. It was published in a peer-reviewed research journal focused on creative and professional writing. This past year, Daffron analyzed the autotheoretical and autopoetical work focused on body perception and identity, posted on Instagram, of Moroccan photographer and poet Inès Bouallou. He also authored an article that analyzed gender identities and sexuality explored in a short film by Moroccan film director Sido Lansari.
His first-person narrative, “Marrakech’s Medina: ‘A Simple Path of Reading,’” gives the reader an insider look into a vibrant landscape. In his narrative, he describes attempting to navigate a winding, chaotic tangle of alleyways with thousands of stalls that is the Marrakesh Medina in search of a Moroccan artist. Focusing his Fulbright U.S. Scholar research on emergent creative Moroccan artists, Daffron notes, “My greatest research challenge has been logistical. Morocco is home to a rich arts scene from literary readings to films series and art fairs. There are simply not enough hours in the day (to experience it all).”.
His creative evolution in the past several years is not unlike the journey of a Ramapo student, who through experiential learning, dives headlong into exploring new perspectives and utilizing critical thinking and analysis. Will Daffron have gotten his fill of Morocco after this year? Apparently not. In a few months, he will return stateside and is looking forward to bringing what he has learned during his Fulbright experience back to the classroom and Ramapo students. Students will benefit from his time abroad, as he hopes to develop a course focused on contemporary Moroccan literature and film. This passionate pursuit of the past few years may very well be the beginning of his lifelong fascination.
A scene in Essaouira from Daffron’s visit in January 2025.