Books

Literature, Democratic and Transitional Justice: comparative world perspectives, ed. with Philippe Roussin (Legenda Books, 2022)

This multidisciplinary collection of essays focuses on the comparative study of literatures, testimonies and arts produced in the wake of violence and on their role in the aftermath of conflict. Scholars from the fields of literary studies, history, art, politics and philosophy engage with each other, and with case studies ranging across the world: form Algeria, Argentina, Columbia, Portugal, Rwanda, Spain, South Africa, Tunisia, Taiwan and the former Yugoslavia. Available in paperback here.

Minding Borders: Resilient Divisions in Literature, the Body and the Academy (Cambridge: Legenda, 2017)

Published by Legenda in 2017, Minding Borders was co-edited by Nicola Gardini, Adrian X. Jacobs, Ben Morgen, Mohamed-Salah Omri and Matthew Reynolds. 'Rather than celebrating the crossing of borders, or dreaming of their abolition, Minding Borders traces their troubling and yet generative resilience. It explores how borders define as well as exclude, protect as well as violate, and nurture some identities while negating others. The contributors range comparatively across geography, politics, cultural circulation, creativity, and the structuration of academic disciplines, hoping that the analysis of borders in one domain may illuminate their workings in another. Whatever other form a border takes, it is always also a border in the mind.' Available in paperback here.

University and Society within the Context of the Arab Revolutions and New Humanism (Tunis: Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, 2016)

This volume, edited in collaboration with Mohsen el-Khouni and Mouldi Guessoumi, contains twenty-four papers, eight in Arabic and sixteen in either French or English. The preliminary work for this project was undertaken at two conferences concerned with the “University and Society in the Context of New Humanism” held in Tunisia in 2014 and 2016. The papers range from studies of the Tunisian Revolution, to comparative discussions concerning revolutions and transition in different Arab countries, Latin America and Europe, to theoretical discussions on humanism and new humanism.

The volume can be read online here.

Confluency (Tarafud) Between Trade Unionism, Culture and Revolution in Tunisia (Tunis: UGTT information and documentation unit, 2016)

This short volume examines the confluence, the tarafud, of artists, intellectuals and activists with the Tunisian General Labour Union, the UGTT. Founded in the colonial period, the UGTT continues to be central to Tunisia’s social, political and cultural life. Available to download here.

Reviewed in the Journal of North African Studies by Nathanael Manonne.

Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Braudel’s Maritime Legacy (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010)

Co-edited with Maria Fusero and Coline Heywood, and based on a prior conference held at Exeter University, this volume collects a number of essays that respond to Braudel’s historical work. Ranging from the fifteenth century to the present day, with a focus that stretches across the Mediterranean world, this volume brings Braudel’s conceptions of history to bear on an array of different topics. Available for purchase here.

My chapter, “Representing the early modern Mediterranean in contemporary North Africa”, focuses on North African novels written between 1929 and 2007, which reflect the complex, interrelated world of the Mediterranean, and approaches them through Braudel’s work.

Reviewed in Mediterranean Historical Review by Victor Mallia-Milanes

In 2021, this book was translated into French by Daniel Verhyde as Echanges culturels et commerciaux dans la méditerranée moderne : l’héritage maritime de Fernand Braudel and published by Presses Universitaires Septentrion. Available for purchase here.

The Novelization of Islamic Literatures: the intersections of Western, Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Turkish traditions (Comparative Critical Studies 4:3, 2007)

In 2007, I edited a special issue of the journal Comparative Critical Studies focusing on the ways in which Islamic literatures across different languages relate to the novel as literary form; while the articles and interviews take the novel as their starting point, they simultaneously question the genre and probe its transnational nature in interestingly different ways. The special issue attempts to read across Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Turkish traditions comparatively as well as in their relationship to Western literatures, breaking away from the dominant practice in comparative literature which tends to privilege the West-East paradigm. Read my introduction here and my interview with Mahmud al-Mas’adi, published in the edition.

Nationalism, Islam and World Literature: Sites of Confluence in the Writings of Maḥmūd al-Masʿadī (London and New York: Routledge, 2006)

This book, which came out of my PhD dissertation, approaches al-Mas’adi’s work from three distinct poles. At first, I approach his works within the historical contect of emerging Tunisian nationalism and post-colonialism, before turning to his engagement with Islamic religious, cultural and literary themes, styles and traditions. In the final analysis, I set al-Mas’adi’s work within world literature, exploring the author’s engagement with Greek and European literatures. You can read the introduction to this volume here and you can purchase the book here.

Reviewed in Middle Eastern Literatures by William Granara.

The Movement of People and Ideas between Britain and the Maghreb, ed. with A. Temimi. (Zaghouan: FTRSI, 2003)

One outcome of a long-term collaboration with historian Abdeljalail Temimi, the book follows a successful conference on the historical relationship between the Maghreb and Britain, hosted in Exeter in 2002, this book collects a vast array of different short articles on the movement of people and ideas between Britain and the Maghreb, written in French, English and Arabic. You can read this book online here (English) and here (Arabic).

Britain and the Maghreb: The State of Research and Cultural Contacts, ed. with A. Temimi. (Zaghouan: FTRSI, 2002)

Prior to The Movement of People and Ideas between Britain and the Maghreb, I organised a conference in Tunisia in 2001 with Professor Temimi concerning the historical relationship between Britain and the Maghreb. This book collects a series of papers focusing on all different aspects of this historical relationship from the 16th century onward. You can read the Table of Contents for this edition here.

Journal Articles

2015 “No ordinary union: UGTT and the Tunisian path to revolution and transition”. Workers of the World: International Journal on Strikes and Social Conflict vol. 1:7, 14-29. 

2012 “The Movement Perspectives: Legacies and representations” in EurOrient, vol. 38 (2012), pp. 149-164.   

2012 “A Revolution of Dignity and Poetry” in boundary 2, vol. 39: 1 (2012), 137-166. 

2011 “Al-sukhriyya fi-adab al-Masa’di: al-Mabna wa-l-ma’na” (in Arabic)" (Irony in al-Mas’adi’s work: structure and meaning) in Al-Hayat al-Thaqafiyya, vol. 226, December 2012, 19-28

2011  “Ahmad al-muktafi bi-dhatihi yadkhul Thala” (Ahmad the self-sufficient enters Thala)  Short Story (in Arabic) in  Al-Hayat al-Thaqafiyya, vol. 220, February-March, 2011, 123-25. 

2011  “Notes on the Traffic between Theory and Arabic Literature” in International Journal of Middle East Studies,  Roundtable: Arabic literature and literary theory, vol. 43, 731-733. 

2009. “The Humanist Arab Intellectual between tafkir (thinking) and takfir (apostasy)”.  Rabat: Mohamed V University UP. 

2008. “Local Narrative Form and the Constructions of the Arabic Novel” in Novel vol. 41, Spring/Summer, 2008, 244-263.

2007 Guest Editor’s Introduction in Comparative Critical Studies, vol. 4:3, 317-328. 

2007 Interview with Mahmud al-Mas’adi in Comparative Critical Studies, vol. 4:3, 435-440. Read in the original (French and Arabic) here.

2005 “History, Literature and Settler Colonialism in North Africa,” in Modern Language Quarterly vol. 66:3, 273-298. 

2003 “Evocation and Mimesis: al-Muwaylihi, al-Mas’adi and the Narrative Tradition,” in Edebiyat, vol. 14 (1-2), 57-79.  

2000 “Adab in the Seventeenth Century: Narrative and Parody in al-Shirbini’s Hazz al-Quhuf,” in Edebiyat, vol. 11: 2, 169-196. 

2000 “Memory and Representation in the Novels of Fawzi Mellah,” in International Journal of Francophone Studies, vol. 3:1, 33-41.  

1998 “‘There is a Jahiz for Every Age’: Narrative Construction and Intertextuality in al-Hamadhani’s Maqamat,” in Arabic and Middle Eastern Literatures, vol. 1, 31-46. 

1998 “ ‘Gulf Laughter Break’: Cartoons in Tunisia during the Gulf Conflict,” in Princeton Papers 6, 133-154. 

1992 “Literature of the Nineties in Tunisia: Making Sense of the fin de siècle,” in Jusur 8, 91-97

 Chapters in Collective Books

2021 “North Africa: An Introduction” in A Companion to African Literatures, ed. Olakunle George, Wiley, 2021, 103- 115. Read a blog post about this book here.

2021 «Représenter la méditerranée moderne dans l’Afrique du nord contemporaine » in Echanges culturels et commerciaux dans la méditerranée moderne : l’héritage maritime de Fernand Braudel, eds. Maria Fusaro, Colin Heywood and Mohamed-Salah Omri, trans. Daniel Verhyde, Presses universitaires Septentrion, 2021, 321-342. Read the original (in English) here.

2020 “Representations of History in Times of Revolution” in On History and Memory in Arab Literature and Western Poetics, eds. Bioutheina Majoul and Yosra Amraoui, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020, 12-28.  

2019 « Écriture et liberté en Tunisie: une justice (poétique) transitionnelle » (in French) in Escribir la democracia. Literatura y transiciones democráticas (siglos XX- XXI), eds. Anne-Laure Bonvalot, Agnès Delage, Anne-Laure Rebreyend and Philippe Roussin, Presses de la Casa de Velazquez, 247-258. 

2017 “The Labour union movement and ‘alternative’ culture in Tunisia: the long view of a close relationship” in Where are the unions? Organised workers and mass mobilisations in the Arab World, Europe and Latin America, ed. Sian Lazar, Zed Books, 64-83.  

2016 “Humanism in times of torture” in University and society in the context of Arab revolutions and new humanism, eds. Mohsen El Khouni, Mouldi Guessoumi and Mohamed-Salah Omri, Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, 83-97. 

2015 “Min ajl nazariyah fi-l-tarafud al-adabi” (in Arabic) (Towards a theory of literary confluency) in al-Dars al-muqarani wa-tahawur al-adab (Comparative Study and Literary Dialogues), Bayt al Hikma, 13-51

2012 “al-Shabbi, Abu al-Qasim" in Dictionary of African Biography, University of Oxford Press.

2012 “Al-Masʿadi kaʾinan trajidian: muqarabah li-nass al-adib wa-masiratihi” (in Arabic) (al-Mas’adi, a tragic being: An approach to his work and life) in Mahmud al-Masadi mubdi’an wa mufakkiran (Mahmud al-Mas’adi, the artist and the thinker, Bayt al-Hikma), 451-470. 

2011  Preface (in Italian) to Mohammed Sgaier Awlad Ahmad: Diario della rivoluzione, ed. Costanza Ferrini, Lucera: Lushir, 2011, 3-8.

2011 “These are not Facebook revolutions” in Overthrow the System, ed. Adrian Grima, Valetta, Malta: Inizjamed, 2011. pp. 13-20. Read an interview concerning this article here.

2011  “Dirasat al-ʿalam al-ʿarabi wa-l-islam bi-l-wilayat al-muttahida wa-britaniyya fi itar ‘al-harb ʿala al-irhab’” (In Arabic) (The study of the Arab World and Islam in the US and Britain in the Context of the “War on Terror) in Censorship at the University and in Academic Research, FTRSI, 2011. 

2010 “Representing the Early-modern Mediterranean in Contemporary North Africa” in Trade and Cultural exchange in the early Modern Mediterranean: Braudel’s maritime legacy, eds. Maria Fusaro, Colin Heywood and Mohamed-Salah Omri, I.B. Tauris, 279-298.    

2010 “Abu al-Qasim al-Shabbi” in Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, 1850-1950. ed. Roger Allen, Harrassowitz Verlag, 292-303.

2010 “Mahmud al-Mas’adi” in Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, 1850-1950. ed. Roger Allen, Harrassowitz Verlag, 207-217.

2006 “Voicing a Culture ‘Dispersed by Time’: Metropolitan Location and Identity in the Art and Literature of Sabiha al Khemir”, in Arab Voices in Diaspora, eds. Ian Netton and Zahia Salhi, Routledge, 53-75.

2002 “Maghrebi Literatures in Britain: Research, Translation, Circulation” in Britain and the Maghreb: The State of Research and Cultural Contacts, eds. M-S Omri and A. Temimi, FTRSI, 190-196.   

2003 “Collective Memory and Representation in Tunisian Literature” in Francophone Post-Colonial Cultures: Critical Essays, ed. Kamal Salhi, Lexington Books, 52-63. 

1998 “ ‘Gulf Laughter Break’: Cartoons in Tunisia during the Gulf Conflict”, in Political Cartoons in the Middle East, ed. Fatma Müge Göçek, Markus Wiener, 133-154.