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CMES is pleased to present the 2022 H.A.R. Gibb Arabic & Islamic Studies Lecture Series with
Michael Cooperson
Professor of Arabic, University of California, Los Angeles
Register in advance: https://bit.ly/368RNFq
Information about the second lecture in this two-part series can be found here: https://bit.ly/347scw4.
Please note: This lecture will be online via Zoom, and everyone wishing to attend should register using the link above. Limited in-person seating for Harvard students and faculty may become available. If so, Harvard students and faculty who have registered will be notified of the campus location for the talk. This process will be by invitation-only.
The most recent history of Arabic literature in English was written in 1998. Since then, editors and translators have expanded the archive, scholars have repositioned Southwest Asia and North Africa within global and connected histories, and critics have exposed the local character of supposedly universal notions of literature. In this new context, what should a new history of pre-modern Arabic literature look like?
Michael Cooperson is Professor of Arabic in the Department of Near Eastern Languages at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Harvard College, the American University in Cairo, and Harvard University. His research focuses on the cultural history of early Islamic Iraq, the topic of his two monographs Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of al-Ma’mun and Al-Mamun. His translations from Arabic include Ibn al-Jawzī's biography of the dissident ascetic Ibn Hanbal; it won the Sheikh Hamad Prize for Translation and International Understanding in 2016. His Englishing of al-Hariri's word-gaming Impostures (NYU Press, 2020) won a 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the translation category and was shortlisted for ALTA's National Translation Award. He is also the translator of Abdelfattah Kilito’s The Author and His Doubles: Essays on Classical Arabic Culture from French. His other interests include Maltese and Modern Greek language and culture.
Contact: Liz Flanagan