Drawing on archival research, this article introduces several Russian poems by the Arabic mahjar poet and writer Mikhail Naimy (Mīkhāʿīl Nu’aymah) (1889-1988) for the first time to scholarship. By examining the influence of Russian literature on Naimy’s literary output, we shed light on the role of multilingualism in generating literary identit…[Read more]

This article compares three key texts in Daghestani Islamicate literature by Persian Azeri writer Bākīkhānūf (d. 1847), Lezgi polymath al-Alqadārī (d. 1910), and Qumyq (Turkic) biographer al-Durgilī (d. 1935), with a view to understanding how their authors conceptualized their role as chroniclers of times past. I draw in particular on Italia…[Read more]

Bijan Elahi on the Art of Translation (collected fragments).

This essay examines how translation theory can globalize contemporary literary comparison. Whereas Persian studies has historically been isolated from the latest developments within literary theory, world literature has similarly been isolated from the latest developments within the study of non-European literatures. I propose the methodology of…[Read more]

This article traces the conception of love and desire (ʿishq) in a Persian verse romance by the Indo-Persian poet Ḥasan Dihlavī, known as ʿIshqnāma (composed in 1301). ʿIshqnāma narrates a tragic and unconsummated love affair between a young Hindu couple. As the two protagonists immolate themselves in what is at once a reworking of the Indic c…[Read more]

file is too large for this repository so I list the links below:
Link to lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xtDwVTndx4&t=43s
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/unibirmingham/multilingualism-as-a-stimulus-to-islamic-literary-theory

In her lecture, Gould discusses how cross-cultural encounters have generated new literary theories and new…[Read more]