In this talk, Dr. Mona Kareem (Tufts Center for Humanities) will share with us her research project around modern literature in the Arab Gulf. Kareem's project applies a transnational framework around literature in the Gulf, assembling a multilingual body of writings that share a geography. She considers the potentials of translation in challenging the borders of national literature-- erected along citizenship and monolingualism-- and in bringing us closer to the cultural nature of the Gulf as a transit space. Kareem argues that a transnational framework shifts the literary imaginary, especially when it comes to questions of history, nativism, aesthetic, and language.
A little about the speaker:
Mona Kareem is a literary scholar, translator, and the author of three poetry collections. She is a recipient of a 2021 NEA literature grant, and a fellow at Center for the Humanities at Tufts University. Kareem holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton. She has taught at Princeton, University of Maryland College Park, SUNY Binghamton, Rutgers, and Bronx Community College. She held fellowships and residencies with Princeton, Poetry International, Arab-American National Museum, Norwich Center, and Forum Transregionale Studien. Her translations include Ashraf Fayadh’s Instructions Within, Ra’ad Abdulqadir Except for this Unseen Thread, and Octavia Butler’s Kindred.
Register Here: https://osu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMpf-mgrjwrGd2i2hgAkvDqtVZ-HYWXKmH4
This talk is co-sponsored by The Center for Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.
