Illinois Global Institute is pleased to announce Prof. Waïl Hassan has been appointed Director of the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies beginning January, 2021. Dr. Hassan is a Professor in the Program in Comparative and World Literature and the Department of English.  His scholarship, which focuses on modern Arabic literatures, includes the books Immigrant Narratives: Orientalism and Cultural Translation in Arab American and Arab British Literature (Oxford, 2011) and Tayeb Salih: Ideology and the Craft of Fiction (Syracuse, 2003).  Prof. Hassan’s current book project is Arab Brazil: Literature, Culture, and Orientalism. 

Prof. Hassan brings significant experience with the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies as a member of the Center’s Executive Committee, and has been extensively involved in area studies, in particular through the Center for African Studies, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the European Union Center, and the Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies.  Prof. Hassan is also Past President of the American Comparative Literature Association.