Building on the multivalent meanings of the Arabo- Persian tarjama (‘to interpret’, ‘to translate’, ‘to narrate’), this essay argues for the relevance of Qur’ānic inimitability (i’jāz) to contemporary translation theory. I examine how the translation of Arabic rhetorical theory (‘ilm al-balāgha) into Persian inaugurated new trends within the study…[Read more]

This syllabus for a very standard course (lit survey of British literature from the Romantic period to the present) is unusual only because its assigned texts are all available open-access. I worked with one of the reference librarians and a work-study student at Lesley’s Sherrill Library to get academically sound editions that were also open…[Read more]

One of Rod Serling’s favourite topics of exploration in The Twilight Zone (1959–64) is nostalgia, which pervaded many of the episodes of the series. Although Serling himself often looked back upon the past wishing to regain it, he did, however, understand that we often see things looking back that were not there and that the past is often ide…[Read more]

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that discussion is distorted in the United States. By “distortion” I mean an inconsistency between the generally understood meaning of the word and the practices that go by it’s name. The meanings of ‘discussion’ range from turn-taking sequences to democratic ideals, as opposed to recitation, conversat…[Read more]

This discussion of Innovations and Turning Points: Toward a History of Kāvya Literature (2014), a magisterial contribution to South Asian literature edited by Yigal Bronner, David Shulman, and Gary Tubb, situates this work within broader trends within the discipline of comparative literature and cross-cultural poetics. I consider how this volume…[Read more]

Introduction to my book, “Projecting Race: Postwar America, Civil Rights, and Documentary Film.” Projecting Race presents a history of educational documentary filmmaking in the postwar era in light of race relations and the fight for Civil Rights. Drawing on extensive archival research and textual analyses, this book tracks the evolution of…[Read more]

Featuring work by: Will Alexander, Alexis Almeida, Maria Attanasio, Gennady Aygi, Omar Berrada, Carla Billitteri, Tanella Boni, Amal Dunqul, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Norman Fischer, Peter France, Todd Fredson, María José Giménez, Yāqūt Al-Ḥamawī, Ouyang Jianghe, Hajiwara Kyojiro, John High, Roberta Iannamico, Lucas Klein, David Larsen, Brian Lucas,…[Read more]

Aboriginal Song Poems (compiled by Robert Wood) André Breton (translated by Mark Polizzotti) René Char (translated by Stuart Kendall) Sergio Chejfec (translated by Margaret Carson) James Clifford Joseph Donahue Gyrðir Elíasson (translated by Meg Matich) Clayton Eshleman (interviewed by Irakli Qolbaia) Nazim Hikmet (translated by Murat Nem…[Read more]

Featuring work by: Eugénio de Andrade, Anonymous, A. James Arnold, Rito Ramón Aroche, Dawn-Michelle Baude, Susan Bernofsky, Aloysius Bertrand, Paul Blackburn, Daniel Borzutzky, André Breton, Garrett Caples, Valerie Mejer Caso, RosalÍa de Castro, Paul Celan, Aimé Césaire, René Char, Beatritz de Dia, Kristin Dykstra, Paul Éluard, Clayton Eshlema…[Read more]

Work by: Etel Adnan – Demosthenes Agrafiotis – Will Alexander – Rachel Tzvia Back – Dan Bellm – Aleksandr Blok – Pura López Colomé – Colin Dayan – René Depestre – Rachel Blau DuPlessis – Marcella Durand – Sarah Tuss Efrik – Elke Erb – Peter France – Johannes Göransson – David Hadbawnik – Larry Kearney – Alexis Levitin – Brian Lucas – Michèle Méta…[Read more]

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. The methodology of hard…[Read more]

The conference will explore the image of the supernatural city as expressed in narrative media from a variety of epochs and cultures. It will provide an interdisciplinary forum for the development of innovative and creative research and examine the cultural significance of these themes in all their various manifestations. As with previous OGOM…[Read more]

The aim of this article is to study the complete poetry of Luis de Góngora using a contrastive analysis. To this end, the poems, which do not pose any attribution problem, published in digital format by the Observatoire de la vie littéraire (OBVIL) have been selected (with the exception of theatre) and divided into three parts on the basis of a c…[Read more]

Text of a talk I gave on March 1 at the Translation Symposium held in conjunction with the awards ceremony of the 3rd International JLPP International Translation Competition at Gakushi Kaikan, Tokyo.

Profiling the Samuel Becket collection at the University of Reading

In this short essay on “La Loi du marché” (“The Measure of a Man”, 2015), I argue that the film builds an accurate representation of the economic and social relations in capitalism, aggravated by the neoliberal offensive.

Entry on Senagelese filmmaker and writer Ousmane Sembène.

Music videos, like many other art works, are the result of a creative process of image creation that sometimes does not start from scratch. At times this process relies on visual material previously produced that is reused and recombined. The use and combination of pre-existing film footage is an example of this, an appropriation with the purpose…[Read more]

Taking “Heroes” (2006-10), the popular drama series about a group of ordinary human beings with superhuman abilities, as a case study allows us to expand on these ideas. This chapter aims at contributing to a stylistic analysis of the series without attempting to examine every major stylistic feature of the series in detail. Instead, the scope of…[Read more]