Linda Istanbulli

Linda Istanbulli is the Caroline D. Eckhardt Early Career Professor of Comparative Literature and Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Arabic at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on modern Arab literatures, particularly Syrian fiction, and explores theoretical interventions against dominant power structures. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (2020) and an M.A. from The American University in Cairo (2010).

Her interdisciplinary work bridges literary criticism, gender studies, secular studies, and memory/trauma theories. Her book project examines the crisis of nationhood in the Arabic-speaking world through Syrian writers' artistic inquiries into Arab modernity.

She has been honored with the Caroline D. Eckhardt Early Career Professorship. Her research emphasizes intellectual and aesthetic challenges to normative paradigms, fostering new social and political negotiations through literary practices.