Anouar El Younssi
Associate Professor of Arabic & Middle Eastern Studies
Dr. El Younssi was born and grew up in the town of Ksar El Kebir in northern Morocco. His American journey started with a year-long Fulbright program in AY 2007-2008 at St. Bonaventure University in upstate New York. He has taught a variety of college-level courses in Arabic Studies and Comparative Literature in different American universities and colleges since 2007. As a teacher, Dr. El Younssi values meaningful interactions in the classroom as well as the understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity. His scholarly work explores the wave of literary innovation in Arabic literatures, with a focus on Morocco and the Maghreb region. His research seeks to consolidate critical scholarship on literary modernity and the avant-garde in their Arabic versions. In addition, Dr. El Younssi has research interests pertaining to discourses in and about Islam in the US, the West, and beyond.
Education
PhD| Pennsylvania State University| 2015
MA| St. Bonaventure University| 2010
Courses Taught
- Elementary Arabic I and II
- Intermediate Arabic I and II
- Introduction to Middle Eastern Civilizations
- Contemporary Literature and Film from the Arab-Muslim World
- The Arab World: Culture and Society
- Arabic Literature
COURSES TAUGHT BEFORE JOINING OXFORD COLLEGE
- Arab Culture and Civilization
- Ethics, Justice, and Rights: Arab-Moslem and African Literatures and Film
- The Arab World: Media, Literature, and Culture
- Arabic Composition & Conversation
- StarTalk Intensive Arabic
- Social Justice and Human Rights in Contemporary Literature and Film from the Arab-Moslem World
- Tangier as a Crossroads of Civilizations: Historical, Cultural, and Literary Encounters between East and West
- Introduction to World Literature
- Race, Gender, and Identity in World Literature
- Myths and Mythologies of the Non-Western World
Accomplishments
- Principal Investigator, StarTalk (intensive Arabic language program) Federal Grant, Summers 2019 and 2021. Oxford College of Emory University. The theme that guides this 4-week summer program is "Let's Explore Moroccan Food."
- Principal Investigator, StarTalk (intensive Arabic language program) Federal Grants, Summer 2018 and Summer 2017. [While working at Virginia Military Institute]
Publications
Book:
The Experimental Turn in the Moroccan Novel, 1976-1989. London: Routledge, 2025.
Other publications:
- "Mohamed Choukri: When Literature Offers Biting Social Critique.” Reading Mohamed Choukri’s Narratives: Hunger in Eden. Edited by Jonas Elbousty & Roger Allen. New York: Routledge, 2024. 116-133.
- "Mise en Abîme: A Strategy that Highlights a Wandering, Fluid Subjectivity in Abdallah Laroui’s novel Awrāq: Sīrat Idrīs al-dhihniyyah.” Resilience and the Wandering Subject. Edited by Supriya Daniel and Anu Kuriakose. Wilmington: Vernon Press, 2024. 109-123.
- "The Material Resurgence of Tamazight in the Moroccan Public Sphere: Possibilities and Limits.” Tamazgha Studies Journal 1 (2023): 129-140.
- "ʿAbdullāh Al-ʿArwī’s ʾAwrāq and the Aesthetics-Politics Dialectic.” Journal of Arabic Literature. 54.1-2 (2023): 189–216.
- "Mohamed Berrada’s game of remembering and forgetting: expanding the horizons of contemporary Arabic literature," The Journal of North African Studies (2022): 1-22.
- “Islam & Muslims: A Threat to, or a Victim of, Western Hegemony?” The End of Western Hegemonies? Political and Cultural Contestations. Edited by Marie-Josée Lavallée. Wilmington: Vernon Press, 2022. 217-246.
- "Aḥmad al-Madīnī: a poetics of dissent," Middle Eastern Literatures, 23.1-2 (2020): 1-23.
- "Maajid Nawaz, Irshad Manji, and the Call for a Muslim Reformation," Politics, Religion & Ideology Journal 19.3 (2018): 305-325.
- “Souffles-Anfās and the Moroccan Avant-Garde Post-Independence,” Journal of North African Studies 23 (2018): 34-52.
- “The Countercultural, Liberal Voice of Moroccan Mohamed Choukri and its Affinities with the American Beats.” Vitality and Dynamism: Interstitial Dialogues of Language, Politics, and Religion in Morocco’s Literary Tradition. Vol. 1. Ed. Kirtsin R. Bratt, et al. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2015. 157-176.
- “An Exoticized World Literature: Ben Jelloun at the Two Shores of the Mediterranean.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 34 (2014): 225-50.
Presentations
- "Berrada's The Game of Forgetting: The Pull between Aesthetics and Politics.” 20th International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece, June 20-22, 2022. (In person)
- "Identity Crisis and the Arab’s Encounter with Europe: A Comparison of Three Novels from MENA.” American Comparative Literature Association annual conference. June 15-18, 2022. (Online)
- "The Call for a Liberal Islam: Between Reformers and Dissenters.” Twelfth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society. University of Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain. June 9-10, 2022. (In person)
- "The Politics of Form in Abdallah Laroui’s novel ʾAwrāq.” Over the Horizon: Comparative Perspectives on Literature International Conference. London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research. June 4-5, 2022. (Online)
- "The Amazigh Cultural Movement in the Maghreb Soldiers On Despite Immense Challenges.” 47th Annual Meeting of the African Literature Association. May 18-21, 2022. (Online
- "Censorship in the Arab World: A Tool for Maintaining the Status Quo,” Obscenity! Blasphemy! Treason! An Interdisciplinary International Conference on Censorship, Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Taiwan University, March 3-5, 2022. (Online)
- "Mohamed Choukri: When Literature Offers Biting Social Critique.” The Southeast Coastal Conference on Languages and Literatures, Georgia Southern University, Sept. 24, 2021. (Online).
- "The Politico-Religious Establishment and Its Assault on Literary Freedom in the Arab World.” The African Literature Association annual conference, May 27, 2021. (Online)
- "The Migrant/Refugee Crisis of 2015 and the Rise of Anti-Muslim Right-Wing Politics in Europe.” 19th International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain, June 30-July 2, 2021. (In-person presentation).
- "Islam, Muslims, and the West: A Strained Relationship Amidst the Rise of Right-Wing Populist Politics.” Eleventh International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society, University of Córdoba, Spain, June 2-4, 2021. (ONLINE)
- "Islam & the West: A Relationship of Incompatibility or Merely One of Misunderstanding?” Middle East Dialogue meeting, Policy Studies Organization. March 19, 2021. (ONLINE)
- “Voices of Dissent/Reform in Islam in North America: A Movement that Keeps Growing.” Thirteenth Annual ASMEA (Association for the Study of the Middle East & Africa) Conference: Understanding the Regions: Politics, Identity, and History of the Middle East and Africa. Virtual. Nov. 18-20, 2020.
- “World Literature in Translation: A Blessing or a Curse?” The 4th International Conference on Language, Linguistics, Literature and Translation: Exploring Cultural Intersections, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman, February 6-8, 2020.
- “STARTALK: An Innovative Language Program in the U.S.” A Talk at Emory College of Arts and Sciences, Atlanta, January 31, 2020.
- “Wadjda, a Film that Quietly Sets the Stage for a Cultural Revolution in Saudi Arabia.” The WASET International Conference on Visual Culture and Arts, Paris, France, December 30-31, 2019.
- “Is Islam an Existential Threat to the West?” 2nd International Conference on “The End of Western Hegemonies?” The University of Jyväskylä, Finland, June 5-7, 2019.
- “When Literary Rebellion and Political Rebellion Converge: The Case of the Twin-Magazine Souffles-Anfas.” The African Literature Association annual conference, Columbus, Ohio, May 16, 2019.
- “Experimentalism in the Postcolonial Moroccan Novel: Fusing the Spheres of Aesthetics and Politics,” South East Coastal Conference on Languages and Literature, Georgia Southern University, April 11-12, 2019.
- “Taha Hussein and Naguib Mahfouz: A Critical Assessment of 20th-Century Arabic Novel.” 3rd Arts & Humanities Conference, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain, May 15-18, 2018.
- “The Trump Executive Order on Immigration: A Wake-up Call for Muslims?” MLA (Modern Language Association) Annual Convention, New York City, Jan. 4-7, 2018.
- “Reforming Islam Today: Between the Constraint of Censorship and the Pressure of Political Correctness.” ASMEA (Association for the Study of the Middle East & Africa) Conference, Washington, DC, Oct. 19-21, 2017.
- “Souffles-Anfās and the Moroccan Revolutionary Left Post-Independence.” The Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Conference, University of Kentucky, April 6-8, 2017.
- “The Postcolonial Moroccan Novel: Between Experimentalism and Realism.” West East Institute International Academic Conference, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, Jan. 23-25, 2017.
- “The New Moroccan Novel and al-Turāth (Heritage): The Pursuit of Authenticity outside the Euro-American Episteme?” The Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Conference, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, 23-25 April, 2015
- “Tahar Ben Jelloun: A Troubled World Littérateur in Exile?” ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) Conference, University of Washington, Seattle, 26-29 March, 2015
- “Tangier: An Abiding Literary Space” Abiding Cities Remnant Sites Conference, CUNY, New York, 14 Nov., 2014.
- “Revolutionary Breaths: Souffles/Anfas and the Moroccan Avant-Garde” The African Literature Association Annual Conference, College of Charleston, South Carolina, March 2013.
Research Interests
- Modern Arabic literature and Culture
- Islam & Islamic/Muslim Reform Movements
- Arab Film
- Francophone Maghrebian Literature
- World literature and Translation Studies
- Theories of Aesthetics and Politics
- The Arab Avant-Garde
- The Beat Generation