Contact
George Mason University
Department of Modern and Classical Languages/ 5100 Horizon Hall MSN 3E5
Fairfax
VA
22030
United States
ABOUT
Professor and Chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at George Mason University. I studied classical, pre-Modern and modern Arabic literature at ‘Ayn Shams University in Cairo and received a PhD in Comparative Literature from The University of Wisconsin-Madison. Born in Alexandria,Egypt, I have traveled extensively throughout the Middle East,Europe, and North America. I specialize in Qur'anic Studies, postcolonial Arabic literary theory, the history and culture of the modern Arab-Islamic world, colonial and postcolonial Studies, as well as French and Egyptian cinemas. I am a recipient of two Fulbright Scholar Awards. My publications appeared in numerous scholarly venues,including der Islam, SCTIW Review, Journal of Arabic Literature, Arabic Studies Journal, Journal of Comparative Poetics, and American Historical Review. My most recent work includes “Fundamentalism” in Futures of Comparative Literature: ACLA Report on the State of the Discipline (Routledge, 2017), "The Un-translatability of the Qur’anic City” in The City in Arabic Literature: Classical and Modern Perspectives (Edinburgh UP, 2018), The Qur’an and Modern Arabic Literary Criticism (Bloomsbury, 2018), and Islam and the Culture of Modern Egypt(Cambridge UP, 2018).
Discipline
Literature
Sub Areas
Arab Studies
Cinema/Film
Comparative
Islamic Studies
19th-21st Centuries
Arabic
Classical
7th-13th Centuries
Geographic Areas of Interest
Egypt
Islamic World
Mediterranean Countries
Arabian Peninsula
Europe
Specialties
Mod Arabic Lit
Classical Arabic
Quranic Studies
Languages
Arabic (native)
English (native)
French (advanced)
Education
PhD
| 2005
| Comp Lit
| U of Wisconsin, Madison
Abstracts
Islam and the Construction of National Identity in Ahmad Shawqi
The Revolt of Islam: Imagining the ‘Umma in ‘Al? A?mad B?k?th?r’s al-Th?’r al-A?mar [The Red Revolutionary]
Criticism between the Sacred and the Profane: Qur'anic Exegesis in Muhammad Ahmad Khalafallah
Performing Loss: Tawfiq al-Hakim’s Ahl al-Kahf (The People of the Cave)
Reclaiming Quranic Exegesis: Amīn al-Khūlī and the New Methods of Tafsīr
A Revolutionary Woman Exegete: Bint al-Sh??i?’s Literary Approach to Quranic Exegesis
Intimations of Divine Love: The Qur’an and the Poetics of Sufism
What is 'Late Antiquity' and What Does the Qur'an Have to Do with It?
The Black Warrior: 'Antara ibn Shaddad and the Pre-Islamic Roots of Qur'anic Insights on Race and Identity
