معرفی
Samah Selim is Professor of Arabic Language and Literature in the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL) at Rutgers University's School of Arts and Sciences, specializing in modern Arabic literary traditions and translation politics across colonial and postcolonial contexts.
Education:
- B.A. in English Literature, Barnard College (1986)
- Ph.D. in Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University (1997)
Her research interrogates narrative genres in Egyptian and Levantine literature through frameworks of comparative fiction theory and translation politics, with particular focus on novelistic forms and their sociopolitical implications. Current projects include a literary biography of Lebanese novelist Niqula al-Haddad and translation of Ghalib Halasa's Sultana, extending her longstanding investigation into Arabic literary modernity.
Professor Selim's publications reveal consistent engagement with translation as cultural mediation, examining how colonial power dynamics shaped Arabic literary production through works like Popular Fiction, Translation and the Nahda in Egypt (2019) which analyzes early 20th-century novel translations.
Scientific Awards:
- Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation (2009)
- University of Arkansas Translation of Arabic Literature Award (2012)
- National Endowment for the Arts Translation Grant (2018)
She has held teaching appointments at Columbia University, Princeton University, University of Aix-en-Provence, and American University in Cairo while directing translation-focused research initiatives including the Berlin-based program Europe in the Middle East; the Middle East in Europe. Her NEA grant specifically supports ongoing literary translation work central to her scholarly practice.
