[Andalusi Studies] Arabic, Persian, and Turkic Poetics: Shortlisted for the European Comparative Literature Excellence Award

[Hany Rashwan]

Dear friends and colleagues,

I hope this message finds you and your loved ones in the best of health.

I am delighted to share the good news that *Arabic, Persian, and Turkic
Poetics: Towards a Post-Eurocentric Literary Theory* has been shortlisted
for the *European Comparative Literature Excellence Award*.

Shortlist announcement:
https://escl-selc.eu/2026/04/05/escl-excellence-award-for-collaborative-research-2026-shortlist-announcement/

When we began this journey, I did not imagine that a volume openly
committed to a post-Eurocentric literary theory would receive such
recognition from a major European scholarly body. This shortlist feels
meaningful, not only for the book itself, but for what it represents.

The project was conceived in 2018 at the American University of Beirut,
with invaluable support from Bilal Orfali and the late Professor Abdulrahim
Abu-Husayn. Over the years, it has grown through sustained collaboration
with outstanding colleagues who trusted the vision and contributed chapters
of remarkable depth. I am deeply grateful to each contributor and to the
distinguished scholars who generously endorsed the volume: Geert Jan van
Gelder, Shawkat M. Toorawa, Mohammad Salama, Huda Fakhreddine, and Louise
Marlow.

Book link:
https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9780197267790

This recognition offers hope to scholars working on non-European literatures
, modern and premodern alike, that Comparative Literature and World
Literature can meaningfully engage with area studies to rethink inherited
Eurocentric frameworks. Such engagement allows these disciplines to renew
themselves and to generate knowledge beyond narrow nationalist paradigms
that have long privileged Euro-American literary histories.

In challenging intellectual times, moments like this suggest that
Euro-American academic fields can evolve, question entrenched hierarchies,
and create space for plural literary traditions on more equal footing. We
also hope that similar reflexive renewal emerges in the nations of the
Global South, rather than merely critiquing Eurocentrism while reproducing
parallel nationalist chauvinisms, they can foster genuinely self-critical,
and intellectually responsible forms of knowledge production.

If the volume is not available in your library and access is difficult,
please feel free to write to me; I would be happy to share a PDF copy.

Wishing you a pleasant weekend.

All my very best wishes,
Hany Rashwan


-- 

Best wishes,

Dr Hany Rashwan

Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature

United Arab Emirates University (UAEU)

https://research.uaeu.ac.ae/en/persons/hany-rashwan/
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