Ian Campbell
Professor, Graduate Director World Languages & Cultures- Education
Ph.D. Emory University, Comparative Literature, 2003
- Specializations
Arabic and Comparative Literature, Arabic Science Fiction
- Biography
IAN CAMPBELL directs the Arabic program at Georgia State University in Atlanta. His research focuses on Arabic-language science fiction, addressing the question of how SF manifests in the Arabic-speaking world, especially with respect to how Arabic SF positions the long history of Muslim scientific and technological achievement in Arabic during the classical and medieval periods. His work on Arabic-language science fiction has appeared in Science Fiction Studies, Extrapolation and the New York Review of Science Fiction. His 2018 monograph Arabic Science Fiction was published by Palgrave Macmillan; it is currently being translated into Arabic and will be published in Cairo in late 2019 or early 2020.
His work on Arabic-language Moroccan novels has appeared in the Journal of Arabic Literature and Middle East Literatures. His book Labyrinths, Intellectuals, and the Revolution: The Arabic-Language Moroccan Novel, 1957–72 was published by Brill in 2013. He also administers a YouTube channel, Arabic Grammar Unpacked.
- Publications
Books
- Arabic Science Fiction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
- Labryinths, Intellectuals and the Revolution: The Arabic-Language Moroccan Novel, 1957-72. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Chapter in Book (invited)
- “Tactile Labyrinths and Sacred Interiors: Spatial Practices and Political Choices in Abdelmajid Ben Jalloun’s Fí Al-Tufúla and Ahmed Sefrioui’s La Boîte à Merveilles,” Bratt KR, Elbousty YM, Stewart DJ, editors. Vitality and Dynanism. Interstitial Dialogues of Language, Politics, and Religion in Morocco’s Literary Tradition. Leiden: Leiden University Press; 2014.
Journal Articles
- “The Double Estrangement of Rationality in Ahmad Sa`dāwi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad,” New York Review of Science Fiction. In editorial review.
- “Metafiction and Pale Fire in Blade Runner 2049,” The Projector. In line editing.
- “Double Estrangement: Nasserism and Stagnation in Nihād Sharīf’s The Conqueror of Time,” Extrapolation. In line editing.
- “False Gods and Libertarians: Artificial Intelligence and Community in Aḥmad `Abd al-Salām al-Baqqāli’s The Blue Flood and Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,” Science Fiction Studies, 44:1 (#131), March 2017, pp. 43-64.
- “Prefiguring Egypt’s Arab Spring: Allegory and Allusion in Ahmad Khalid Tawfiq’s Utopia,” Science Fiction Studies, 42:3 (#127), November 2015, pp. 541-556.
- “These Papers are Intended to Mislead: Soldiers and Freedom Fighters in Mubārak Rabī`’s Comrades in Arms… and the Moon,” Middle Eastern Literatures, 18:3, August 2015, pp. 144-152.
- “Grammars of Disguised, Multiple, and Missing Critique in Dreams of Trespassand Tomorrow We’ll Get Our Land Back”. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 11:1, March 2015, pp. 80-97.
- “Science Fiction and Social Criticism in Morocco of the 1970s: Muḥammad `Azīz Laḥbābī’s The Elixir of Life”. Science Fiction Studies, 42:1 (#125), March 2015, pp. 42-55.
- “Still a Better Love Story than Twilight: Abbas and Bahjatt’s HWJN, the Saudi State and Sexual Politics,” New York Review of Science Fiction, issue 305, January 2014, pp. 1-7.
- “Orbital Elements: Gender Essentialism and Libidinal Economy in Neal Stephenson’s Anathem and Cryptonomicon,” New York Review of Science Fiction, issue 265, September 2010, pp. 1-17.
- “Mapping Moroccan Literature: The Spatial Practices of Modernity in Abdelmajid Ben Jalloun’s Fī al-Tufūla,” Journal of Arabic Literature, vol. 39, no. 3, 2008, pp. 377-97.
- “The Cell and the Ward: Imprisonment, Servitude and Nationalist Identity in Two Novels by Abdelkarim Ghallab,” Middle Eastern Literatures, vol. 11, no. 3, 2008, pp. 301-15.
- “Blindness to Blindness: Trauma, Vision and Political Consciousness in Ghassan Kanafani’s Returning to Haifa,” Journal of Arabic Literature, vol. 32, no. 1, 2001, pp. 53-73.