Nizar F. Hermes
Office Address: 141 New Cabell Hall
Office Hours Spring 2025: Tuesday 12-3:00PM
Education
PhD., Comparative Literature, University of Toronto
Research Areas
North African and Mediterranean Studies
Premodern Arabic-Islamic Studies
Comparative and World Literatures and Cultures
Literary and Cultural Theories
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, Book Chapters, and Book Reviews
"A North African Sheikh’s Ultimo Gusto: Abū ‘l-Fatḥ al-Tūnisī and his Poetic Defenses of Coffee in Early Modern Damascus,” (forthcoming, Summer 2025 Global Food History)
“They Declared War on Fish! An Eighteenth-Century Algerian Malḥūn (Folk Poem) on the 1770 Danish-Norwegian Bombardment of Algiers,” (forthcoming, Spring 2025, Scandinavian Journal of History)
“Bakr Ibn Ḥammād al-Tāhartī: A Forgotten Pioneering Maghribī Poet in Different Wor(l)ds,” Remembering al-Andalus and the Maghrib in the Mashriq, ed. Mayte Penelas (forthcoming, Brill, 2025).
Ross Brann, Iberian Moorings: Al-Andalus, Sefarad, and the Tropes of Exceptionalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021, Book Review, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, 2025.https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/733462?journalCode=spc
Nicola. Carpentieri, Writing Twilight: The Arabic Poetics of Ageing in Medieval Sicily and al-Andalus. Turnhout: Brepols, 2023, Book Review, The Medieval Review, 2024.https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/40692/42760
"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)
أحلام طفولة مُحَطّمة/Shattered Childhood Dreams”, Al-Muthaqqaf (The Intellectual), January, 2025.
في الخالصة كان لقيانا: أو حواريّة طيف ابن البعباع/In Kalsa (Palermo) We Met: A Conversation with the Phantom of Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ” Al-Majallah al-Thaqāfiyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah (The Cultural Magazine of Algeria), December, 2024.
الهودسن يجيدُ الإصغاء للغرباء و الشّعراء والمظلومين/The Hudson Knows How to Listen Strangers, Poets, and the Oppressed,” Al-Muthaqqaf (The Intellectual), October 2024.
القصائد تحاصر الشّعراء في لشبونة/Poems Besiege Poets in Lisbon,” Al-Majallah al-Thaqāfiyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah (The Cultural Magazine of Algeria), October, 2024.
الصِّبا الموؤود واد/The Valley of Buried Youth," and "هايكو يابانيّ مات: "A Haiku of a Japanese Who Has Just Died!" Diwanalarab: Online Pulpit of Culture, Thought, and Literature, November 2024.
ليالي غرناطة الآرقة:أو طيف بوعبديل المشؤوم/The Sleepless Nights of Granada: Or the Ominous Phantom of Boabdil,” Al-Muthaqqaf (The Intellectual), October 2024.
تأمّلات من جسور دبلن المتنافسة/ Reflections from Dublin's Vying Bridges,” Al-Majallah al-Thaqāfiyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah (The Cultural Magazine of Algeria), October, 2024.
في "سنترو" لامبيدوزا/ In the 'Centro' of Lampedusa,” Al-Muthaqqaf (The Intellectual), October, 2024.
خواطر خريف قرطبة/ Passing Thoughts of Cordoba’s Autumn,” Al-Muthaqqaf (The Intellectual), September, 2024.
ابن حمديس في أبلطة المنافي المنافقة/Ibn Hamdis in the Courts of Treacherous Exiles,” Al-Majallah al-Thaqāfiyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah (The Cultural Magazine of Algeria), September, 2024.
أقاصي المجاز الموحش/Far Ends of the Desolate Metaphor,” Al-Muthaqqaf (The Intellectual),
ظلال الأوطان المسلوبة/ The Shadows of Stolen homelands,” September, 2024.
"ياسر ربّما سنتقابل من جديد/Yasser, Perhaps We Will Meet Again!" Intelligentsia for Culture and Free Thought, September 2024.
“آهات من تاكوبايا/Groans from Tacubaya" Al-Majallah al-Thaqāfiyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah (The Cultural Magazine of Algeria), June 2024.
"دوفو يا شاعر الدّمار العتيق/ Du Fu, O Great Poet of Ancient Sorrows!"Al-Majallah al-Thaqāfiyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah (The Cultural Magazine of Algeria), May 2024.
"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