Studying Modern Arabic Literature

Prior to the 1960s the study of Arabic literature, both classical and modern, had barely been emancipated from the academic approaches of Orientalism. The appointment of Mustafa Badawi as Oxford University's first Lecturer in Modern Arabic Literature changed the face of this subject. Badawi’s teaching and research showed that Arabic literature was making vibrant contributions to global culture and thought. Part biography, part collection of critical essays, this volume celebrates Badawi's immense contribution to the field and explores his role as a public intellectual in the Arab world and the west.

Roger Allen retired in 2011 from his position as the Sascha Jane Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. He was Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations. In 2009-10 he served as President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA). Among his published works are: A Period of Time (1st [microfiche] edition, 1974; 2nd edition 1992); The Arabic Novel: an historical and critical introduction (1st edition 1982, Arabic edition, 1986; 2nd edition 1995, 2nd Arabic edition 1998); and The Arabic Literary Heritage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998 (abbreviated paperback edition [2000] Introduction to Arabic Literature; in Arabic, Muqaddima li-al-adab al-`Arabi, Cairo: Al-Majlis al-A`la, 2003).. In addition to a large number of studies in book, encyclopedia and article form on modern and pre-modern Arabic literature, he has translated fictional works by a number of Arab writers, including Naguib Mahfouz, Yusuf Idris, `Abd al-rahman Munif, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Hanan al-Shaykh, Salim Himmich and Ahmad al-Tawfiq. Until 2009 Robin Ostle was Official Fellow in Modern Arabic at St. John’s College, University of Oxford. He is now Emeritius Research Fellow in Modern Arabic at St. John’s College, and is currently President of the Academic Council of the Maison Mediterraneenne des Sciences de L’Homme in the University of Aix-Marseille. His most recent major publication was the edited volume Sensibilities of the Islamic Mediterranean (I.B.Tauris 2008).