"How has the Arabian Nights Sustained a Reputation?"

AVACGIS Guest Lecture Series with Muhsin al-Musawi

Tuesday, September 29, 2020 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM EDT
Zoom Virtual Event

Join Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies (AVACGIS) for a guest lecture by Muhsin al-Musawi from Columbia University. This lecture will address changes in the reception of the Arabian Nights over time. It takes into account three specific aspects of this reception: one that relates to translations, another to illustrations, and third problematizes the wider use in audio-visual culture. The talk will be moderated by Nathaniel Greenberg (Associate Professor of Arabic & Affiliate Faculty at AVACGIS, George Mason University) as a part of his class Major Arabic Writers (ARAB 325): 1001 Nights at GMU.

Professor Muhsin al-Musawi is a literary critic and Professor of classical and modern Arabic literature, comparative and cultural studies at Columbia University. He served as academic consultant for many academic institutions and taught for over two decades at universities in the Arab world before moving to Columbia   University. He is the editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature and the recipient of the Owais Award in Literary Criticism in 2002, and also Kuwait Prize in Arabic language and literature, 2018.  He is the author of twenty-eight books (including 6 novels) and over sixty scholarly articles. His teaching and research interests span several periods and genres. His books include: Scheherazade in England (1981); The Society of the  Thousand and One Nights (2000);The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights (2009), Anglo-Orient (2000); The Postcolonial Arabic Novel: Debating Ambivalence(2003); Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition (2006); Reading Iraq: Culture and Power in Conflict (2006); Islam on  the Street: Religion in Arabic Literature (Rowman &Littlefield, 2009).It is ‘Choice’ Outstanding Academic Title for 2010. He is also the editor and contributor to Arabic Literary Thresholds: Sites of Rhetorical Turn in Contemporary Scholarship (2009) and wrote the introduction and notes to the Barnes& Noble Classics Edition  of The Arabian Nights (2007). His book ,The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction (Notre Dame University Press, 2015) has been receiving  the highest acclaim. He edited, Arabic Literature for the Classroom (Routledge, 2017). His forthcoming book is Arabic Disclosures: The Postcolonial Autobiographical Atlas (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020). Forthcoming is The Arabian Nights in Contemporary World Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2021).