The CMES Working Group on Middle East Literature in Transition: New Frontiers in the 21st Century is pleased to present the conference
Middle Eastern Literatures in the 21st Century
Organized by CMES Director William Granara
This conference will assess literary and cultural production in the first decade of the 21st century Middle East. Scholars and students from nine universities and across the Harvard campus will present on recent works from emerging writers, poets, and artists who exemplify the most exciting and innovative trends in Turkish, Hebrew, Persian and Arabic literary culture. The conference will begin with a key-note address by Sinan Antoon, Iraqi novelist, poet and professor of Arabic Literature at the Gallatin School of New York University.
Program
April 3, 2014 CGIS South 020, Belfer Case Study Room, 1730 Cambridge Street
4:00-4:15 pm Welcome: William Granara, Gordon Gray Professor of Arabic; Director, CMES
4:15-6:30 Panel I: Arabic Literature in Exile
Chair: Sandra Naddaff (Harvard University)
Benjamin Smith (Harvard University): Writing Egypt from the American Urban Landscape
Simon Williams (Oxford University): Budrus: The Graphic Novel & Narratives of Protest in Israel-Palestine
Claudia Esposito (U Mass Boston): Exilic Voices in Contemporary Italo-Maghrebi Literatures
Yousif Hanna (Harvard College): Hail Mary: An Iraqi Novel and its Novelist
6:30 Keynote address: Sinan Antoon (Harvard, 2008; Gatlin School, NYU)
The Arabic Novel in the 21st Century: Writing Against the Political Maelstrom
April 4, 2014 CGIS South 020, Belfer Case Study Room, 1730 Cambridge Street
9:00-10:45 am Panel II: New Directions in Israel Literature
Chair: Irit Aharony (Harvard University)
Daniel Behar (Harvard University): Mourning & Dancing: Mordechai Galili’s Long Poems
Sadia Agsous (INALCO, Paris, France): Sayed Kashua, a Palestinian writing in Hebrew
Golan Moskowitz (Brandeis University): Queer Affect & the Israeli Graphic Narrative of the 21st Century
Danielle Drori (NYU): Pseudo-biblicism, Parody, and Prophecy in Klil Zisapel’s The Zionist Comedy
10:45-11:00 Break
11:00 am-12:45 pm Panel III: Persian Literature
Chair: Olga Davidson (Ilex Foundation)
Chad Kia (Harvard University): A Woman's Voice in Contemporary Afghan Fiction
Daniel Rafinejad (Harvard University): The Unusual Short Fiction of Mitra Eliyati
Sheida Dayani (NYU): Of Poetry and Its Translation
Parisa Hashemean (GSD, Harvard): Keep Out All Your Logics: Poetry and Painting of Amin Mansouri
12:45-2:00 pm Lunch break
2:00-3:45 pm Panel IV: Turkish Literature
Chair: Himmet Taskomur (Harvard University)
Ceyhun Arslan (Harvard University): Exile in the Past: Literary Heritage in Selim İleri’s Mel’un
Efe Murat Balikçioğlu (Harvard University): Heves: Experimental Poetry in Turkey
Roberta Micallef (Boston University): The Trauma of a Political Prisoner in the Family: The Yildiz Family
Hacı Osman Gündüz (Tufts University): İhsan Oktay Anar: The Ottoman Past and Magic Realism
4:00-5:45 pm Panel V: Arabic Literature Post 9/11
Chair: Margaret Litvin (Boston University)
Allison Blecker (Harvard University): Almond Trees & Olive Groves: Eco-nostalgia in Sa’akunu bayna al-lawz
Khaled Al-Masri (Swarthmore College): When Men Become Wolves: Hassan Blasim’s Poetics of Madness and Pain
Luke Leafgren (Harvard University): Muhsin Al-Ramli: Writing Iraq in the post-Saddam era
Sami Alkyam (Harvard College): The Rape of the Female Body as Allegory for the Rape of a Nation
Contact: Liz Flanagan
Sponsor(s): Made possible with support from the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Dean of the Division of Social Science, and the Donald T. Regan Lecture Fund.