Rebecca Johnson

Rebecca C. Johnson is an Associate Professor of English at Northwestern University, with co-appointments at the Alice Kaplan Institute of the Humanities and core faculty roles in Middle East and North African Studies and Comparative Literature. She serves as Director of Middle East and North African Studies and Associate Editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature.

• Education: Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Yale University

Her research interrogates transnational literary exchanges between Arabic and European traditions, focusing on translation history, novelistic form, and postcolonial aesthetics. Her acclaimed book Stranger Fictions (2021) redefines the global genealogy of the novel through Arabic translation practices in the Nahḍah period.

Recent projects like Visionary Politics examine Arab avant-garde movements (1960s–present) and their attempts to imagine revolutionary futures. Her Google Scholar publications reveal a trajectory spanning colonial-era literary transfers, experimental Arab art, and transnational solidarity discourses.

Scientific Awards & Fellowships:
• Weinberg College Distinguished Teaching Award (2015)
• Weinberg College Distinguished Advising Award (2013)
• Teaching Literature Book Award Honorable Mention (2009)
• Fellowships from ACLS, SSRC, CLIR, Fulbright, and Kaplan Institute

She has translated seminal works such as Sinan Antoon’s I'jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody and Faraj Bayraqdar’s A Dove in Free Flight, contributing to cross-cultural understanding of Arab literary traditions.