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Levi Thompson

PhD

Academic Profile

Levi Thompson is Assistant Professor of Persian and Arabic Literature in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. His research focuses on modernist literary developments outside of Europe. Levi’s first book, Reorienting Modernism in Arabic and Persian Poetry (Dec. 2022), is published by Cambridge University Press.

Sample Publications

Book

Reorienting Modernism in Arabic and Persian Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals:

5-  “Vernacular Transactions: Aḥmad Shāmlū’s Persian Translations of Langston Hughes’ Poetry,” Middle Eastern Literatures 22, nos. 2-3: 128-140. 2019 [published in 2021]. Translated into Persian by Muṣtafā Ḥusaynī, “Nigāhī bih tarjumah-hā-yi Shāmlū az ashʿār-i Langstūn Hiyūz,” Mutarjam: faṣlnāmah-yi ʿilmī farhangī 32, no 88 (2022): 139-149.

4- “Re-Orienting Modernism: Mapping East-East Exchanges Between Arabic and Persian Poetry,” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, Mapping New Directions in the Humanities, 40: 115-138. 2020.

3- “An Iraqi Poet and the Peace Partisans: Transnational Pacifism and the Poetry of Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb,” College Literature, special issue on poetry networks, Kamran Javadizadeh and Robert Volpicelli eds. 47, no. 1: 65-88. 2020.

2- “A Transnational Approach to ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayātī’s ʿUmar al-Khayyām,” Transnational Literature 11, no. 1: 1-14. 2018.

1-  “Strange Bedfellows: The Crisis of Modernity in Najīb Maḥfūẓ’s al-Qāhira al-Jadīda (Cairo Modern),” Middle Eastern Literatures 18, no. 3: 264-282. 2016.

Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Books:

2- “Until A Shirt Blossoms Red: Proto-Third Worldism in Aḥmad Shāmlū’s Manifesto,” Persian Literature as World Literature, eds. Mostafa Abedinifard, Omid Azadibougar, and Amirhossein Vafa, Literatures as World Literature, ed. Thomas Oliver Beebee. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. 171-190.

1- “Translating Tahrir: From Praxis to Theory with Tahrir Documents,” with Emily Drumsta and Elias Saba, The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Translation, eds. Sameh F. Hanna, Hanem El-Farahaty and Abdel Wahab Khalifa. London: Routledge, 2020: 176-188.

Book Reviews in Peer-Reviewed Journals:

6-Review of Huda J. Fakhreddine, The Arabic Prose Poem: Poetic Theory and Practice,Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature Series (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), International Journal of Middle East Studies 54, no. 1 (2022): 217-219.

5- Review of Kevin Jones, The Dangers of Poetry: Culture, Politics, and Revolution in Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2020), Arab Studies Journal 29, no. 2 (2021).

4- Review of Hilla Peled-Shapira, The Prose Works of Gha’ib Tu’ma Farman: The City and the Beast (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), Arab Studies Journal (Fall 2019): 164-168. Available online at Jadaliyya.

3- Review of Tahia Abdel Nasser, Literary Autobiography and Arab National Struggles, Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature Series (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), Middle Eastern Literatures 21, no. 1 (2018): 107-108.

2- Review of Waed Athamneh, Modern Arabic Poetry: Revolution and Conflict (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017). Journal of Arabic Literature 48, no. 3 (2017): 340-344.

1- Review of Ikram Masmoudi, War and Occupation in Iraqi Fiction, Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature Series (Edinburgh University Press, 2015). H-Levant, H-Net Reviews. May, 2017.

Book-Length Translations:

2- Ramy Al-Asheq, Ever Since I Did Not Die, Levi Thompson ed., Isis Nusair trans. Seagull Books. November 2021. (Arabic; reviewed on Asymptote, Bulaq, and Litro Magazine; cited in NYRB)

1- Ramy Al-Asheq, My Heart Became a Bomb, Levi Thompson ed., Levi Thompson, Dina Abul Hosn, and Nida Awine trans. Emerging Voices from the Middle East series at the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. April 2021. (Arabic)

Current Position

Assistant Professor, university of Texas at Austin