| Medieval Studies

Nizar F Hermes

Associate Professor and Department Chair

ⵏⵉⵥⴰⵔ ⴼ. ⵀⵉⵔⵎⴰ نزار فاروق هِرْمَاسُ

I received a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Comparative Literature, in association with the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations. Before joining the University of Virginia, I taught at the University of Toronto, Princeton University, and the University of Oklahoma. While my research interests are interdisciplinary and comparative in scope, I am particularly interested in medieval and early modern Euro-Islamic contacts, intercultural contacts in the premodern world, North African and Andalusian studies, world literatures and cultures.

Publications

The [European] Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture, Ninth-Twelfth Century AD (The New Middle Ages). New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012.

The City in Arabic Literature: Classical and Modern Perspectives, co-edited volume with Gretchen Head. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

In Progress

Of Lost Cities and the Poetic Imagination in the Premodern and Precolonial Maghrib: 9th-19th Centuries AD (under contract McGill University Press).

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

“A Tale of Two Sultans: Mūlāy Ismāʿīl of Morocco in Western and Arabic Sources,” with Mary E. Allen (forthcoimng, New Literary History).

"A Moor's "Un-Twainian" Insights on Cooper's "Un-Readable" Art," Journal of East-West Thought, 9 (2019): 21-41.

https://journals.calstate.edu/jet/article/view/2364

“It Eclipsed Cairo and Outshone Baghdad, Ibn Rashīq’s Elegy for Qayrawan.” Journal of Arabic Literature 48 (2017): 270-297.

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/1570064...

“The Poet(ry) of Frankish Enchantment: The Ifranjiyyāt of Ibn Qaysarānī." Middle Eastern Literatures 20 (2017):267-287.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1475262X.2017.1385695

“Woe is me for Qayrawan!” Ibn Sharaf's Lāmiyya, the Plight of Refugees and the Cityscape.” The City in Arabic Literature: Classical and Modern Perspectives. Eds. Nizar F. Hermes and Gretchen Head (Edinburgh University Press, 2018): 81-103.

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-city-in-arabic-literature-...

“Nicephorus’ Al-Qaṣīda al-Arminiyya: First English Annotated Translation and Comments.” Christian-Muslim Relations: A Reader (600-1500). Eds. David Thomas. Leiden: Brill, 2020.

“Classical and Medieval Arabic Literary Delights: Towards Teaching the Humanistic Literature of the Arabs." Arabic Literature for the Classroom: Teaching Methods, Theories, Themes and Texts.Ed. Mushin al-Musawi. New York: Routledge, 2017: 83-96.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315451640

“Nostalgia for al-Andalus in Early Modern Moroccan Voyages en Espagne: al-Ghassānī’s Riḥlat al-wazīr fī iftikāk al-ʾasīr (1690-1691) as a Case Study." Journal of North African Studies, 21 (2016): 433-452.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13629387.2015.1098541?journal...

“Why You Can't Believe the Arabian Historian Cide Hamete Benengeli: Islam and the Arabian Cultural Heritage in Don Quixote.” The Comparatist, 38 (2014): 206-226.

https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_comparatist/v038/38.hermes.html

“The Moor’s First Sight: An Arab Poet in a Ninth-Century Viking Court.” Historic Engagements with Occidental Cultures, Religions, Powers: Perceptions from Europe and Asia. Eds. Anne R. Richards and Iraj Omidvar (2014, Palgrave): 57-69.

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9781137405029_3

“Consorting with the Base Arabian, The Tragedie of Mariam, Faire Queene of Jewry (1613), from Discursive Ambivalence to Orientalist Benevolence.” Journal of East-West Thought, 4 (2014): 59-71.

http://www.cpp.edu/~jet/img/jet10_cover.pdf

“The Orient’s Medieval ‘Orient(alism)’: The Rihla of Sulayman al-Tajir as a Case Study.” Orientalism Revisited: Art, Land, and Voyage. Ed. Ian R. Netton (Routledge, 2013): 207-222.

https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415538565

“The Byzantines in Medieval Arabic Poetry: Abu Firas’ Al-Rumiyyat and the Poetic Responses of al-Qaffal and Ibn Hazm to Nicephorus Phocas’ Al-Qasida al-Arminiyya (The Armenian Ode).” Byzantina Symmeikta: Journal of the Institute for Byzantine Studies. 19 (2009): 35-61.

http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/bz/article/view/3121

“King Arthur in the Lands of the Saracens,” Nebula: Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship. 4 (2007): 131-145.

Miscellaneous

الزّحف على معاقل النّسيان أو خواطر مغتربة جدّا /A Blitz on the Territories of Amnesia, or Very Exiled Thoughts (a collection of poetry, in progress)

"نفس جورج فلويد الأخير/ George Floyd's Last Breath," Intelligentsia for Culture and Free Thought, July 2020.

"رسالة شاعر أمريكي أسود إلى العرب / A Letter of a Black American Poet to the Arabs," Intelligentsia for Culture and Free Thought, July 2020.

"دوفو يا شاعر الدّمار العتيق / Du Fu, O Great Poet of Ancient Plights," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature, June 2020.

"قهوتي / My Coffee," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature, June 2020.

"الشاعر المخذول / The Abandoned Poet," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature, June 2020.

" Risāla Ilā Ibn al-Marzabān/ A Letter to Ibn al-Marzabān [Author of The Book of the Superiority of Dogs Over Many of Those Who Wear Clothes," Awtār: Magazine of Culture and Literature, April 2011.

" Sindabad and Un-Found/ed Dream," Transverse: A Comparative Studies Journal. 4 (2005):46-48.

"Al-Fārisu al-Nāʾim/The Sleeping Knight," Azzaman Newspaper, London, UK 2002.

"Al-Dāllu wa-l-Madlūl/The Signifier and the Signified," Azzaman Newspaper, London, UK, 2002.

"Amīratu al-Ṣaḥrāʾ al-ʿArabiyya/The Princess of the Arabian Desert," Azzaman Newspaper, London, UK, 2001.

"Al-Nisyānu al-Dhikrā/Remembering While Forgetting," Azzaman Newspaper, London, UK, 2001.

"Al-Aṣḥāb/On Friends," Azzaman Newspaper, London, UK, 2001.

" The Hut of my Ancestors," Inner Weather. 6 (2001): 43-45.

" The First Sight, the Last Sigh," Inner Weather. 5 (2001): 24-29.

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