Djelal Kadir

Professional Bio

I am a literary and cultural comparatist. My scholarship and teaching traverse disciplines, theoretical and critical discourses, genres, chronological epochs, and literary traditions. My scholarly focus has ranged geographically from the Americas to trans-oceanic and intercontinental flows. I have published a number of books (five single-authored, five in collaboration, a book of translations, and two textbook), and edited more than twenty volumes on world literature and modern authors from around the globe as Editor of World Literature Today and as guest editor of a number of scholarly journals. My scholarly work has been translated into a number of languages––Arabic, French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Turkish. My original poetry has been translated into Greek.  I have translated  from the Portuguese the poetry of Brazilian João Cabral de Melo Neto into English.

I am the Founding President of the International American Studies Association (2000), and have served on a number of boards of international organizations: Synapsis: The European School of Comparative Studies (2000-2011); Stockholm Collegium of World Literary History (2008-present); Fundación Xavier de Salas (Spain, 2002-present); Jorge Luis Borges Center for Studies and Documentation, Romansk Institut, Aarhus University, Denmark (1996-2006); The Center for American Studies and Research, American University of Beirut (2004-2013); UNESCO Commission for Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, Social Sciences and Humanities, 2005-present); American Comparative Literature Association (2007-2011); Institute for World Literature, Harvard University (2010-present). My former doctoral students teach at institutions around the world.

AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION

• American Literatures (Western Hemisphere)
• Comparative Theory and Criticism
• Poetics and Ethics
• Historiography