Levi Thompson

Department Address Contact Information Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations E-mail: [email protected] University of Colorado Boulder Website: www.artsandadab.com 279 UCB Tel.: 303-735-2670 Boulder, CO 80309-0279 Office: Woodbury 306

EMPLOYMENT

Assistant Professor of Arabic, University of Colorado Boulder (2018-present)

Artemis A.W. and Martha Joukowsky Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender Studies, Pembroke Center, Brown University (2017-2018)

Adjunct Instructor, Department of History and International Studies, Arcadia University (2009-2010)

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA (2017) Diss.: “Speaking Laterally: Transnational Poetics and the Rise of Modern Arabic and Persian Poetry in Iraq and Iran”

Committee: Nouri Gana (Chair), Michael Cooperson, Domenico Ingenito, Nasrin Rahimieh

C.Phil. Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA (2015)

Fellow, Center for Arabic Study Abroad in Cairo (2010-2011)

M.A. Arabic and Islamic Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania (2009) Thesis: “The Autobiography of Muḥammad Shukrī: Modern Ṣuʿlūk”

B.A. History, Government, College of William and Mary (2007)

BOOK MANUSCRIPT

Re-Orienting Modernism: Mapping a Modernist Geography Across Arabic and Persian Poetry. (Under review for the series Cambridge Studies in World Literature at Cambridge University Press.)

PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

Articles:

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.

Book Chapters:

2- “Until A Shirt Blossoms Red: Proto-Third Worldism in Aḥmad Shāmlū’s Manifesto,” Persian Literatures as World Literature, Literatures as World Literature, ed. Thomas Oliver Beebee (New York: Bloomsbury). 2021. (In production.)

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. 2020: 176-188. Book Reviews:

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.

Article Under Review:

1- “Vernacular Transactions: Aḥmad Shāmlū’s Persian Translations of Langston Hughes’ Poetry” (under review at Middle Eastern Literatures.)

In Preparation:

1- “Another Poetic World in Luwīs ʿAwaḍ’s Plutoland (1947),” Routledge Companion to Arabic Poetry, eds. Huda Fakhreddine and Suzanne Stetkevych. 2022. (Book chapter.)

2- “Furūgh Farrukhzād and Arabic Literature, a Reciprocal Haunting.” (Article.)

INVITED TALKS

7- “Looking Back at Badr Shakir al-Sayyab’s Rain Song,” The Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, Washington, D.C., 29 Oct. 2019. Available online: Part I, Part II, Part III.

6- “Re-Orienting Modernism: Mapping East-East Exchanges Between Arabic and Persian Poetry,” Multilingual Locals & Significant Geographies: For a New Approach to World Literature project convened by Francesca Orsini, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, 29 May 2019.

5- “Re-Orienting Modernism: East-East Poetic Exchange in Arabic and Persian,” Center for the Humanities at Tufts University, 26 April 2018.

4- “Iʿdād anshiṭah faʿʿālah l-istikhdāmihā fī al-muḥādathah wa-l-ḥiwārāt al-ṣaffiyyah” (“Preparing Effective Activities for Conversation and Class Discussions”), Weekly Teacher Workshop, Middlebury at Mills Arabic School, 29 June 2017. (In Arabic.)

3- “Cosmopolitanism at the Margins: Transnationalism and Modernist Poetry in Iraq and Iran,” Alternative Cosmopolitanisms: Transnational Solidarities from the Margins workshop, Tufts University, 8 April 2017.

2- “Tahrir Documents,” Creative Time Summit: Living as Form, New York University Skirball Center, 23 Sept. 2011.

1- “Navigating a Crisis Workshop: Iran,” Camden County College, Blackwood, NJ, 12 April 2010.

GRANTS

Center for Humanities & the Arts Small Grant (2020; $2000 for the Arab Culture and Music Residency with Omar Offendum, April 8-11 [cancelled due to COVID-19 shutdown]) Research & Innovation Office Faculty Conference Award, CU Boulder (2020; $3,000 for the Arab Culture and Music Residency) President’s Fund for the Humanities Grant, CU Boulder (2020; $5,000 for the Arab Culture and Music Residency) Dean’s Summer Research Grant, CU Boulder (2019) Culture and Language Across the Curriculum Course Development Grant, CU Boulder (2019) Open Educational Resources Stipend, CU Boulder (2019)

FELLOWSHIPS

Center for Humanities & the Arts Faculty Fellowship, CU Boulder (2020-2021) Dissertation Year Fellowship, UCLA (2016-2017) Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, UCLA (2014) Graduate Research Mentorship, UCLA (2013-2014) Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, UCLA (2013) Academic Year FLAS for Persian, UCLA (2012-2013) Summer FLAS for Persian, University of Wisconsin, Madison (2012) NELC Department Fellowship, UCLA (2011-2012) Academic year FLAS for Persian, University of Pennsylvania (2008-2009) Summer FLAS for Arabic, Arabic Language Institute in Fes, Morocco (2008) William and Mary Reves Center Critchfield Scholarship, American University of Beirut (2006) James Monroe Scholarship, William and Mary (2005)

TEACHING

University of Colorado Boulder Headwaters: Going Upriver in Literature and Film (Freshman Seminar) (F19) The Arabic Novel (F18, F19) Culture and Language Across the Curriculum section (F19) Representing Islam (S19) Introduction to Arab and Islamic Civilizations (S19, S20) Gender, Sexuality, and Culture in the Modern Middle East (F18, S20)

Brown University The Arabic Novel, from Realism to Fantasy, substitute instructor (2 sessions, in English; S18) Modern Arabic Poetry, Between Tradition and Innovation, substitute instructor (2 sessions, Arabic and English; S18) Framing Gender in Middle Eastern Cinema (F17; nominated for a Teaching with Technology Award at Brown’s Instructional Technology Group)

Middlebury at Mills Summer Arabic Program Beginning Arabic, Instructor of Record (Summer 16, Summer 17) Upper Intermediate Arabic, Graduate Intern (Summer 15) Beginning Arabic, Graduate Intern (Summer 14)

Community College of Rhode Island Beginning Arabic, Instructor of Record (F16, S17)

UC Berkeley Near Eastern Studies Department Beginning Arabic 1B, Graduate Student Instructor, sole-taught course (S16) The Short Story in Modern Arabic Literature, substitute instructor (7 sessions, all in Arabic; S16) Beginning Arabic 1A, Graduate Student Instructor, sole-taught course (F15)

UCLA NELC Department Beginning Arabic 1C, TA, shared teaching and grading duties for 3 classes (S15) Beginning Arabic 1B, TA, shared teaching and grading duties for 3 classes (W15) Beginning Arabic 1A, TA, sole-taught course (F14)

Arcadia University History and International Studies Department The Rise of Islamic Empire in the Middle East, Instructor of Record (seminar) (S10) The Modern Middle East, Instructor of Record (F09)

ORGANIZED PANELS AND CONFERENCES

4- Vernacular Transactions in the Middle East, with Qussay Al-Attabi, Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, November 2019.

3- Nonviolence: A Global Lexicon, with the Pembroke Center postdoctoral research fellows, Brown University, 18 April 2018.

2- “Schooling in Iraq: Modernity and Education in Iraqi Memory,” with Pelle Valentin Olsen, Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., Nov. 2017. (Sponsored by The Academic Research Institute in Iraq [TARII].)

1- “South by East: Decentering and Reorienting Intellectual and Literary Exchanges in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, Nov. 2016 (Supported by the University of California Humanities Research Institute.)

PAPERS GIVEN AND OTHER PANELS

27- “Shādhil Ṭāqah, A Forgotten Iraqi Modernist?” Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., October 2020. 26- Respondent to Aun Ali’s work-in-progress workshop “The School of Hillah in Islamic History,” 11 May 2020. 25- Panelist, “Content Instruction using Languages other than English: CLAC in Practice,” CU Boulder Center for Asian Studies, 20 Nov. 2019. 24- “Vernacular Transactions in Ahmad Shamlu’s Persian Translations of Langston Hughes’s Poetry,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 15 Nov. 2019. 23- Discussant, “Multilingualism, Cultural Diversity, and the Evolution of Arabic Literature,” organized by Linda Istanbulli, Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 14 Nov. 2019. 22- “Re-Orienting Modernism: Mapping East-East Exchanges Between Arabic and Persian Poetry,” Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations Research Forum, CU Boulder, 22 April 2019. 21- “Proto-Third Worldism and Ahmad Shamlu’s Manifesto,” Center for Asian Studies Luncheon Series, CU Boulder, 4 April 2019. 20- “Al-Bayātī’s ʿUmar Al-Khayyām and Global Arab Literary Modernity,” Modern Language Association Convention, Global Arab and Arab American Forum Panel: Transacting Arab Literary Modernity organized by Karim Mattar, 4 Jan. 2019. 19- Chair, “The Particular and the Universal: Reading and Theorizing Middle Eastern Literatures in Global Literary Contexts,” organized by Cameron Cross and Nazli Ipek Huner-Cora, 17 Nov. 2018. 18- “Aḥmad Shāmlū Writes a Manifesto,” on the panel “Persian Literature as World Literature: Blurring Borders and Boundaries in the Persian Literary Discipline,” organized by Fatemeh Shams for the Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Antonio, 16 Nov. 2018. 17- “A Transnational Translation Praxis for Modernist Poetry in Arabic and Persian,” on the panel “Theory and Practice of Poetry Translation: Arabic and Persian,” organized by Alexander Key for the American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting, UCLA, 1 April 2018. 16- “The Poets of the Baghdad Teachers College,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., 20 Nov. 2017. 15- Discussant of Mohamed Diab’s Clash (2016), part of the series “Confined Spaces, Political Choices in New Films from the Middle East,” Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, Brown University, 15 November 2017. 13, 14- “Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb’s Transnational Turn,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, 18 November 2016. Also given at University of Chicago’s 31st annual Middle East History and Theory Conference, 6 May 2016. (Panel sponsored by the Farouk Mustafa Memorial Fund.)

11, 12- “At Far Off Points, People Pass By: A Transnational Approach to Iranian and Iraqi Modernist Poetry,” UCLA International Institute Third Annual Conference, Going Global: Transnational Issues in Interdisciplinary Applications, 25 April. Also given at the American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting, Cambridge, MA, 18 March 2016. 10- “Travel Forms: The Reception of Arabic Prosody in Tehran,” Modern Language Association Convention, Austin, TX, 8 Jan. 2016. 9- “A Phoenix in Ashes: Modernist Poetry in Iran and Iraq,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, 22 Nov. 2015. 8- “al-Masʿadī as Arab Mythmaker in The Dam,” African Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, 21 Nov. 2015. 7- “The Modern Crisis in Najib Mahfuz’s al-Qahirah al-Jadidah (Cairo Modern),” Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., 25 Nov. 2014. 6- “Capital, the Individual, and the End of the Nahḍah in Maḥfūẓ’s al-Qāhirah al-Jadīdah,” American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting, New York University, 22 March 2014. 5- “The Mission of the Intellectual in the Developing World and the Works of Maḥmūd al- Masʿadī,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 11 Oct. 2013. 4- “Symbol and Tahrir Square: The Struggle for Revolutionary Legitimacy,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Denver, 19 Nov. 2012. 3- “An Introduction to Tahrir Documents,” 16th Annual Symposium of the Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations Graduate Students’ Association at the University of Toronto, 6 March 2012. 2- “The Autobiography of Muḥammad Shukrī: Modern Ṣuʿlūk,” Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference on the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, Columbia University, 15 April 2010. 1- “Albert Camus, the Pied-Noirs, and the Search for Identity,” Graduate Student Workshop on North Africa and the North African Diaspora, Princeton University, 4 April 2008.

TRANSLATIONS

17- Ramy Al-Asheq, Live! (A short dramatic work originally written in Modern Standard and Syrian colloquial Arabic; in progress.) 16- Ramy Al-Asheq, The Dogs of Memory, Levi Thompson trans. (Poetry collection under consideration at Copper Canyon Press.) A few of the translations came out in Transference, 2019. (Arabic) 15- Ramy Al-Asheq, My Heart Became a Bomb, Levi Thompson ed., Levi Thompson, Dina Abul Hosn, and Nida Awine trans. Poetry collection under consideration with the Emerging Voices from the Middle East series at the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. (Arabic) 14- Ramy Al-Asheq, Ever Since I Did Not Die, Levi Thompson ed., Isis Nusair trans. (A collection of prose pieces to be published by Seagull Books Sept., 2020; Arabic). 13- Omar al-Jaffal, “We Just Want to Live,” Levi Thompson trans., poem translated for the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany, 26 Feb. 2020. (Arabic.) 12- Ramy Al-Asheq, “Four Prose Poems by Ramy Al-Asheq,” Levi Thompson trans., Transference 7, no.1, article 5, Fall 2019, 12-20. (Arabic) 11- Ramy Al-Asheq, “In the Sea’s Playground,” Levi Thompson trans., ArabLit Quarterly 2, no. 2, Summer 2019, 26-27. Also available online: “In the Sea’s Playground.” (Arabic) 10- Ramy Al-Asheq, “Zurückbleiben,” Levi Thompson trans. (Prose poem translated for the Journal der Künste, vol. 11: 19) (Arabic and German) 9- Ramy Al-Asheq, No One Noticed When You Died, translated poetry as part of an interdisciplinary performance, Academy of Arts, Berlin, 4 May 2019. (Arabic) 8- Ramy Al-Asheq, “11 Poems on Aging,” translated to English for the exhibition “Grey is the New Pink – Moments of Aging,” Weltkulturen Museum (Frankfurt, Germany: October 2018 – September 2019). (Arabic) 7- “Until the Red Blossom of a Shirt (1950),” by Ahmad Shamlu, Purple Ink, Brown University. 2017. (Persian) 6- “Poems by Nima Yushij,” [“The Swan” (1926), “The Phoenix” (1938), “The Raven” (1938), “The Bird of Grief” (1938),] Inventory, Princeton, 66-74. 2017. (Persian) 5- Arab Comics: 90 Years of Popular Visual Culture exhibit, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley. 2016. 4- “Al-Azhar Draft Constitution of 1979,” translated with Elias Saba in Assem Hefny, “Religious Authorities and Constitutional Reform: The Case of Al-Azhar in Egypt,” Constitutionalism, Human Rights, and Islam after the Arab Spring, Rainer Grote and Tilmann J. Röder, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 113- 121. 2016. (Arabic)

3- “Badr Shakir al-Sayyab: The Poem and the Phoenix,” Jadaliyya, 24 Dec. 2014. (Arabic) 2- “Badr Shakir al-Sayyab: Whorehouse,” Jadaliyya, 2 June 2014. (Arabic) 1- “Condoleezza Rice’s Piano by Sa‘dī Yūsuf,” Transference, 1:1, Article 13. 2013. (Arabic)

OTHER WRITING

MULOSIGE Modules: Re-Orienting Modernism Reading list. 2019. “Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me: Poetry by Palestinian Poet Ghassan Zaqtan,” with Suleiman Hodali and Rawad Wehbe. 2012.

OTHER RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Member of University of California Humanities Research Institute working group “Translation and Exchange in Middle Eastern/South Asian Literary Culture” (2016-2017) Research Assistant for Ismail K. Poonawala, UCLA NELC Department. Assisted with Ismail Poonawala, “Wealth and Poverty in the Qur’an and Traditions of the Prophet, and How Those Concepts are Reflected in the Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’,” Journal of Shiʿa Islamic Studies, 8:3, 263-287 (Summer 2015) and Ismail Poonawala, “The Chronology of al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān’s Works,” Arabica, 65:1-2, 84-162 (2018). (2015- 2017) Translator, WORLD Policy Analysis Center, UCLA (2015) Persian language consultant, PBS Finding Your Roots, “The Long Way Home,” [Azar Nafisi episode] (aired 1 March 2016) (2015)

DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE

University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Faculty Assembly Department Representative (spring 2021) Departmental Merit Review Committee (2020) Arabic Instructor Search Committee Chair (2019) Hindi/Urdu Instructor Search Committee Member (2018)

VOLUNTEERING

Co-founder and Editor at Tahrir Documents (2011 – now) Translation Consultant, WORLD Policy Analysis Center, UCLA (2014, 2018)

SERVICE TO THE PROFESSION

Member of the 2020 Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award Committee (Humanities), MESA Reviewer for Journal of Arabic Literature (2020- ) Reviewer for Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, Canadian Comparative Literature Association (2020- ) Reviewer for Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, University of Toronto Press (2020- ) Reviewer for Postcolonial Text, Open Humanities Press (2019- ) Member of the Advisory Board of the journal Studies in Arabic Narratology at Kharazmi University, Tehran Reviewer of a poetry collection translated into English from Arabic, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin. 2017. Reviewer of poetry translations for Transference, Western Michigan University. 2014, 2016 – 2017.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion Introductory Workshop (2020) New Assistant Professor Program Certificate, CU Boulder Faculty Teaching Excellence Program (2019) Primary Investigator Academy Certificate, CU Boulder Research and Innovation Office (2019)

ADVISING

Undergraduate Advisor, Arabic and Middle East and Islamic Studies Certificate, CU Boulder (2018-present)

Second reader, Honors Thesis in Modern Culture and Media by Elizabeth Falkenberg, Brown University (2019)

MEDIA

“The Franklin Book Program,” episode for The East Is A Podcast with Sina Rahmani, co-producer (with students in my spring 2019 course “Representing Islam”), 1 May 2019. Interview with Nigāhī dīgar [Another Look, parts 1-12], Noveen TV, 27 Ādhar 1393 [18 Dec. 2014] - 21 Isfand 1393 [12 March 2015] (in Persian). 2014 – 2015. “Interview with PhD Student Levi Thompson, Co-Founder of TahrirDocuments.org,” G.E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA, 29 Oct. 2013. Taḥrīr; Maydān-i Nātamām [Tahrir: The Ongoing Square], interview with Gelare Khoshgozaran for Mardomak, 7 Mihr 1390 [29 Sept. 2011] (in Persian). Gulf Times: Weekend, “Pulse of the people: Egyptians race to save fleeting mementos of their revolution,” Hannah Allam, 13 May 2011. This Conversation, “Life in the Cairo Uprising,” two-part episode with Dr. Teresa Keller. 22 and 29 Feb. 2011.

LANGUAGES

Arabic: fluent / Persian: good reading, fair writing and speaking / German: basic writing and speaking; can read with a dictionary / French: can read with a dictionary / Russian: in progress

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

Middle East Studies Association / American Comparative Literature Association / Modern Language Association