Muhsin al-Musawi is professor of classical and modern Arabic literature, comparative and cultural studies at Columbia University. A renowned scholar and literary critic, his teaching and research interests span several periods and genres. Professor al-Musawi is the author of thirty-nine books (including 6 novels) and over sixty scholarly articles. His books include: Scheherazade in England (1981); The Society of the Thousand and One Nights (2000); The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights (2009),Anglo-Orient (2000); The Postcolonial Arabic Novel: Debating Ambivalence (2003); Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition (2006); Reading Iraq: Culture and Power in Conflict(2006); Islam on the Street: Religion in Arabic Literature (Rowman &Littlefield, 2009), selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2010; The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015); Arabic Disclosures: The
Postcolonial Autobiographical Atlas (University of Notre Dame Press,
2022); The Arabian Nights in Contemporary World Cultures (Cambridge University Press, 2021).His edited volumes include Arabic Literary Thresholds: Sites of Rhetorical Turn in Contemporary Scholarship (Brill, 2009); Arabic Literature for the Classroom (Routledge, 2017). He also wrote the Introduction and Notes to the Barnes & Noble Classics Edition of The Arabian Nights (2007). Professor al-Musawi is the editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature, the foremost academic journal in the field of Arabic literature. He has also served as academic consultant for numerous academic institutions in the US and abroad.
Professor al-Musawi is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the highly prestigious 2002 Owais Award in Literary Criticism, the 2018 Kuwait Prize in Arabic Language and Literature , King Faisal Prize in Arabic Literature in English, Jan.2022; and Sheikh Zayed Book Award, May 2022.
Reviews of The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters
- Review from Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and
Renaissance Studies - Review from Renaissance Quarterly
- Review from Parergon
- Review from Common Knowledge
- Review from Reading Religion
- Review from Common Knowledge
- Review from Renaissance Quarterly
- Review from Journal of Islamic Studies
- Review from Journal of the Society for Contemporary
Thought and the Islamicate World - Review from Al-Hayat
Recent Books:
Arabic Disclosures: The Postcolonial Autobiographical Atlas
The Arabian Nights in Contemporary World Cultures: Global Commodification, Translation, and the Culture Industry
The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction
Islam on the Street
The Arabian Nights in English Literary Theory
- Arabic Literature for the Classroom: Teaching Methods, Theories, Themes and Texts. Routledge, 2017.
- Sulaf Tavern of Baghdad (Sulaf Baghdad; Beirut: Arabic Center Publications, in Arabic, 2016)
- Arabic Literary Thresholds: Sites of Rhetorical Turn in Contemporary Scholarship
edited, Brill, 2009 - The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights
Columbia University Press, 2009