Office Address: 141 New Cabell Hall

Office Hours Fall 2024: Monday 6-7:30PM and Thursday 2-3:30PM

Education

PhD., Comparative Literature

Biography

ⵏⵉⵥⴰⵔ ⴼ ⵀⵉⵔⵎⴰⵙ    نزار ف هِرْمَاسْ  

I received a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Comparative Literature, in association with the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations. Before joining the University of Virginia, I  taught at the University of Toronto, Princeton University, and the University of Oklahoma. While my research interests are interdisciplinary and comparative in scope, I am particularly interested in medieval and early modern Euro-Islamic contacts,  intercultural contacts in the premodern world, North African and Andalusian studies, world literatures and cultures.

Publications  

Books     

Of Lost Cities: The Maghribī Poetic Imagination. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024.https://utpdistribution.com/9780228022299/of-lost-cities/

The City in Arabic Literature: Classical and Modern Perspectives, co-edited volume with Gretchen Head. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

The [European] Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture, Ninth-Twelfth Century AD (The New Middle Ages). New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012. 

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

"Ibn Khamīs and the Poetics of Nostalgia in the Tilimsāniyyāt (Poems on Tlemcen)," The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry, ed., Huda Fakhreddine and Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych. Routledge, 2023, 147-166.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003096955-7/ibn-kham%C4%ABs-poetics-nostalgia-tilims%C4%81niyy%C4%81t-poems-tlemcen-nizar-hermes

“A Tale of Two Sultans; Franco-Moroccan ReInventions of Mulāy Ismāʿīl and his Marriage Proposal to La Princesse de Conti,” with Mary E. Allen, New Literary History, 2021, 52: 489–507.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/846842

“Representative of Nicephorus Phocas, The Armenian Ode,” The Bloomsbury Reader in Christian-Muslim Relations, Primary Sources, 600-1500, Volume 1. Ed. David Thomas. Bloomsbury Academic, 2023: 99-104.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/christianmuslim-relations-9781350233300/

“A Moor's "Un-Twainian" Insights on Cooper's "Un-Readable" Art,” Journal of East-West Thought, 9 (2019): 21-41.

https://journals.calstate.edu/jet/article/view/2364

“It Eclipsed Cairo and Outshone Baghdad, Ibn Rashīq’s Elegy for Qayrawan.” Journal of Arabic Literature 48 (2017): 270-297.

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/1570064...

“The Poet(ry) of Frankish Enchantment: The Ifranjiyyāt of Ibn Qaysarānī." Middle Eastern Literatures 20 (2017):267-287.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1475262X.2017.1385695

“Woe is me for Qayrawan!” Ibn Sharaf's Lāmiyyah, the Plight of Refugees and the Cityscape.” The City in Arabic Literature: Classical and Modern Perspectives. Eds. Nizar F. Hermes and Gretchen Head (Edinburgh University Press, 2018): 81-103.

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-city-in-arabic-literature.html

“Classical and Medieval Arabic Literary Delights: Towards Teaching the Humanistic Literature of the Arabs," Arabic Literature for the Classroom: Teaching Methods, Theories, Themes and Texts. Ed. Mushin al-Musawi. New York: Routledge, 2017: 83-96.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315451640

“Nostalgia for al-Andalus in Early Modern Moroccan Voyages en Espagne: al-Ghassānī’s Riḥlat al-wazīr fī iftikāk al-ʾasīr (1690-1691) as a Case Study." Journal of North African Studies, 21 (2016): 433-452.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13629387.2015.1098541?journal...

“Why You Can't Believe the Arabian Historian Cide Hamete Benengeli: Islam and the Arabian Cultural Heritage in Don Quixote.” The Comparatist, 38 (2014): 206-226.

https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_comparatist/v038/38.hermes.html

“The Moor’s First Sight: An Arab Poet in a Ninth-Century Viking Court.” Historic Engagements with Occidental Cultures, Religions, Powers: Perceptions from Europe and Asia. Eds. Anne R. Richards and Iraj Omidvar (2014, Palgrave): 57-69.

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9781137405029_3

“Consorting with the Base Arabian, The Tragedie of Mariam, Faire Queene of Jewry (1613), from Discursive Ambivalence  to Orientalist Benevolence.” Journal of East-West Thought, 4 (2014): 59-71.

http://www.cpp.edu/~jet/img/jet10_cover.pdf

“The Orient’s Medieval ‘Orient(alism)’: The Rihla of Sulayman al-Tajir as a Case Study.” Orientalism Revisited: Art, Land, and Voyage. Ed. Ian R. Netton (Routledge, 2013): 207-222.

https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415538565

“The Byzantines in Medieval Arabic Poetry: Abu Firas’ Al-Rumiyyat and the Poetic Responses of al-Qaffal and Ibn  Hazm to Nicephorus Phocas’ Al-Qasida al-Arminiyyah (The Armenian Ode).” Byzantina Symmeikta: Journal of the Institute for Byzantine Studies. 19 (2009): 35-61.

http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/bz/article/view/3121

“King Arthur in the Lands of the Saracens,” Nebula: Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship. 4 (2007): 131-145.

Poetry

الزّحف على معاقل النّسيان أو خواطر مغتربة جدّا /A Blitz on the Territories of Amnesia, or Very Exiled Thoughts (a collection of poetry, in progress)

"لا أرضى بدور عطيل/Never an Othello: To Tayeb Salih," Al-Majallah al-Thaqāfiyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah (The Cultural Magazine of Algeria), May, 2024.

"شعراء المدينة/ The Poets in the City," Al-Majallah al-Thaqāfiyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah (The Cultural Magazine of Algeria), May, 2024.

"لحظة اغتيال ديوان العشق العشرينيّ/ The Assasination of Youth's Poetic Follies," Al-Majallah al-Thaqāfiyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah (The Cultural Magazine of Algeria), May, 2024.

"بسببنا/ Because of Us: To Emily Berry," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature,  April,  2024.
"أوهام قطّ أسمر/The Illusions of a Brown Cat," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature,  April,  2024.

"أرواح وأرواح/ Lives and Lives," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature,  October,  2023.

"خفايا الخواطر المنسرحة/The Secrets of Released Thoughts," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature,  February, 2023.

"فرادى،أبدا لا تأت الأحزان/Sorrow Come Not Alone,"  Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature,  February, 2023.

"أمّي /Mother," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature,  February, 2023.

"أنين الوتر المشحون / The Groans of the Burdened Chords," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature,  November 2022.

"نواعم المعاني / Tender Ideas," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature, November, 2022.

"نفس جورج فلويد الأخير/ George Floyd's Last Breath," Intelligentsia for Culture and Free Thought, July 2020.

"رسالة شاعر أمريكي أسود إلى العرب / A Letter of a Black American Poet to the Arabs," Intelligentsia for Culture and Free Thought, July 2020.

"قهوتي / My Coffee," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature, June 2020.

"الشاعر المخذول / The Abandoned Poet," Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature, June 2020.

" Risāla Ilā Ibn al-Marzubān/ A Letter to Ibn al-Marzabān [Author of The Book of the Superiority of Dogs Over Many of Those Who Wear Clothes," Awtār: Magazine of Culture and Literature, April 2011.

" Sindabad and Un-Found/ed Dream," Transverse: A Comparative Studies Journal. 4 (2005):46-48.

"Al-Fārisu al-Nāʾim/The Sleeping Knight," Azzaman Newspaper, London, UK  2002.

"Al-Dāllu wa-l-Madlūl/The Signifier and the Signified," Azzaman Newspaper, London, UK, 2002.

"Amīratu al-Ṣaḥrāʾ al-ʿArabiyya/The Princess of the Arabian Desert," Azzaman Newspaper, London, UK, 2001.

"Al-Nisyānu al-Dhikrā/Remembering While Forgetting," Azzaman Newspaper, London, UK, 2001.

"Al-Aṣḥāb/On Friends," Azzaman Newspaper, London, UK, 2001.

" The Hut of my Ancestors," Inner Weather. 6 (2001): 43-45.

" The First Sight, the Last Sigh," Inner Weather. 5 (2001): 24-29