Margaret Litvin

ON LEAVE AY 21-22

Margaret Litvin is a historian of modern Arabic literature and theatre. Her first book, Hamlet’s Arab Journey: Shakespeare’s Prince and Nasser’s Ghost (Princeton, 2011), has been taught in university courses ranging from “Theatre History” to “The New Comparative Literature” to “Anthropology of the Middle East.” Her current research continues the effort to situate Arab cultural production in global context. Her book manuscript, Another East: Arab Writers, Moscow Dreams, reconstructs some literary legacies of Arab-Russian and Arab-Soviet cultural ties. Another ongoing book project, Sindbad’s Raft, Houdini’s Cage: Arab/ic Theatre in the New World Market, analyzes the phenomenon of Arab/ic theatre produced for European and American audiences. Her translations include Hamlet adaptations by Syrian and Iraqi playwrights (in Four Arab Hamlet Plays, co-edited with Marvin Carlson, Segal Theatre Center, 2016) and Sonallah Ibrahim’s Moscow-set novel Ice (Seagull Publishing, 2019).

At BU, Litvin teaches Arabic and world literature, including literary translation, “Global Shakespeares,” and “1001 Nights in the World Literary Imagination.” She was founding director of the Middle East & North Africa Studies Program (2013-2017). She advises students in the Arabic minor and WLL’s BA in Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages & Literatures.