Zainab Mahmood
Tenure-track Assistant Professor of English
Literary circulation and exchange in pre-modern Islamic cities, especially in Arabic and Persian, and its reception literature in global, colonial and postcolonial contexts; British and American Muslim expression in English literature
Educational background
1996.08-2000.05, Haverford College, USA, B.A. in English Lit/Religion
2000.08-2002.05, Harvard University, USA, M.A. in Near Eastern Studies
2008.08-2018.05, New York University, PhD in Middle Eastern Studies
Prior employment
2003.06-2005.06 Asia Society, Associate, Teach Asia program
2005.06-2008.08, Columbia University, Assistant Director, South Asia Institute
2015.08-2020.05, New School University, Adjunct Assistant Professor
2020.08-2021.12, New York University, Assistant Professor
Profile
Zainab earned her MA from Harvard University's Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department, and her PhD in Arabic and Persian Literature from NYU's Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies department. She has served as Assistant Director of the South Asia Institute at Columbia University.
Zainab is a scholar of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu literary sources. She focuses on the exegetical, philosophical, poetic, mystical and travel writing produced and circulated in pre-modern Islamic centers of knowledge. She regards the pre-modern Islamic world as multilingual and multicultural, producing a thriving book culture that prized literary exchanges across genre, geographic and linguistic lines. She is particularly interested in the points of contact produced by this culture of circulation, and how these texts continue to be received in increasingly global, colonial and post-colonial contexts. Zainab also focuses on British and American Muslim cultural and literary expression in English writing, and the effects of colonialism on Muslim experiences and expression.
Proposed Collaborations
Video Gaming Culture and Pre-Modern Literature; Silk Road Encounters; China-Pakistan Literary/Historic Relations; Anglophone South Asian Writing