Dr. May Hawas
Biography
May Hawas is Associate Professor in World Literature and Valerie Eliot Fellow in English at Newnham College. She is a comparatist with particular interest in the relations between Europe and the Middle East.
Research Interests
World literature, nineteenth and twentieth-century comparative literature and criticism in Europe, especially the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and the literary history and criticism of the novel.
Areas of Graduate Supervision
- World literature and comparative literature: namely, comparative work, whether of theoretical concepts or fiction, that is done in English simultaneously with (any) other language (European, African, Asian, etc.).
Specific area strengths:
- the Mediterranean and Europe
- the Middle East and North Africa
Specific topics of interest:
national identities; cosmopolitanism; citizenship; literature and politics; literature and history.
Connect with May
Publications
Books
with Bruce Robbins. Teaching Politically: Global Essays on Pedagogy and Autonomy. (Fordham UP 2024)
Politicising World Literature: Egypt, Between Pedagogy and the Public (Routledge 2019)
The Routledge Companion to World Literature and World History (Routledge 2018)
The Diaries of Waguih Ghali: An Egyptian in the Swinging Sixties, Vol. 2 (1966-68) (AUC Press 2017)
The Diaries of Waguih Ghali: An Egyptian in the Swinging Sixties, Vol. 1 (1964-66) (AUC Press 2016)
Edited Journals
with Theo D'haen. "What is World Literature -of Arabic?" Journal of World Literature 2.3 (2017)
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
'"Aren't they all in the literary histories?" English Criticism and the Dismissal of Comparative Literature.'" The European Review, 2025.
"Poets of Liminality: C. P. Cavafy and Sayyed Darwish." C. P. Cavafy and World Literature. Eds. Takis Kayalis and Vicente Fernández González. London: Bloombsury, 2025.
"World Literature and the Question of History." The Routledge Companion to World Literature, 2nd Edition. Eds. Theo D'haen, David Damrosch, Djelal Kadir. London & NY: Routledge, 2022.
“What if the Fictions were Real? Postcolonialism from the Viewpoint of the Postcolonials." Studies in the Novel 52.4 (Winter 2020). Pp. 459-77.
“Some Observations on the Mediterranean Sublime: From C. P. Cavafy to Elena Ferrante." Wonder-Marvel-Miracle: Thaumastòn, Admiratio, Mirabilia. Ed. Emilia di Rocco. Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 2019.
“The Crises of World Literature: Suez from Building to Bandung.” The Routledge Companion to World Literature and World History. London & NY: Routledge, 2018. Pp. 219-33.
with Philip Muehlenbeck. “Mobilizing Women? State Feminisms in Communist Czechoslovakia and Socialist Egypt.” Gender, Sexuality, and the Cold War (Vanderbilt UP 2017). Pp. 178-203.
“Why Valeurs? René Etiemble and Comparative Literature in Mid-Century Alexandria.” The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue canadienne de littérature comparée 43.3 (2016). Pp. 370-79.
Essays
Mar. 2020. "Taking the Last Flight out in Times of Lockdown", Politics/Letters.
May 2018. "How not to write on cosmopolitan Alexandria", Politics/Letters.
Dec. 2017. “Waguih Ghali’s Diaries: Political Ethics, Personal Aesthetics", Jadaliyya.