Jonathan Smolin

|Associate Professor

Academic Appointments

Associate Professor, Middle Eastern Studies
Affiliate, Jewish Studies

I have taught at Dartmouth since 2005. In my classes, you will learn about the Middle East from multiple perspectives and a wide array of sources, from classical texts to social media. I believe passionately that the classroom is a space of curiosity, open dialogue, and critical thinking. I am committed to building a learning environment where students engage deeply with different viewpoints and experiences. In my teaching, the Middle East is a site of nuance and complexity, not rigid categories and polarization.

As a scholar, I explore the intersections between politics and popular culture in the modern Middle East and North Africa. In my current book project, I am writing a new history of the Arab cultural response to the shattering June 1967 loss to Israel through unprecedentedly graphic Lebanese magazines and novels that emerged immediately after the war but have been entirely neglected by scholars. In The Politics of Melodrama: The Political and Cultural Lives of Ihsan Abdel Kouddous and Gamal Abdel Nasser (Stanford University Press, forthcoming 2024), I offer a new history of dissent in 1950s and 60s Egypt by linking the work of perhaps the most popular Arabic writer of the twentieth century, Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, to his highly consequential yet little known personal relationship with Nasser himself. In Moroccan Noir: Police, Crime, and Politics in Popular Culture (Indiana University Press, 2013), I investigate the unexpected intersections between the state and new forms of police entertainment to shape public perceptions of Morocco's political transition during the 1990s and early 2000s.

I have also translated five Arabic novels into English, from Moroccan police novels to the classics of Ihsan Abdel Kouddous.

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Contact

Jonathan.Smolin@dartmouth.edu

6-3975

Reed, Room 320

HB 6178

Education

Ph.D. Harvard University
M.A. Harvard University
M.A. University of Chicago
B.A. University of Chicago

Selected Publications

The Politics of Melodrama: The Political and Cultural Lives of Ihsan Abdel Kouddous and Gamal Abdel Nasser (Stanford University Press, December 2024).
Translation and Introduction of Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, A Nose and Three Eyes: A Novel with Foreword by Hanan al-Shaykh (Hoopoe, 2024).
"Arab Crime Fiction" in The Cambridge Companion to World Crime Fiction, edited by Jesper Gulddal, Stewart King, and Alistair Rolls (Cambridge University Press, 2022), pp. 160-177.
Translation and Introduction of Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, I Do Not Sleep: A Novel (Hoopoe, 2021).

Translation and Introduction of Youssef Fadel, A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me: A Novel (Hoopoe, 2016).
Translation of Abdelilah Hamdouchi, White Fly: A Novel (Hoopoe, 2016).
"Nabil Ayouch: Transgression, Identity, and Difference" in Contemporary Arab Filmmakers: Political Protest and Social Critique, edited by Josef Gugler (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015), pp. 214-240.
Moroccan Noir: Police, Crime, and Politics in Popular Culture (Indiana University Press, 2013). Winner, 2014 L. Carl Brown AIMS Book Prize for North African Studies.
"Didactic Entertainment: The Moroccan Police Journal and the Origins of the Arabic Police Procedural,"Internatonal Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (IJMES) 45 (2013): pp. 695-714.

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Works In Progress

Open Access Digitization of Rose El Youssef Magazine, 1926-1970.

Recent Public Speaking

Video of Second Discussion on the Horrific Events Unfolding in Israel and Gaza
Video of Hope Interrupted in Israel/Palestine: The View from a Vacant Lot. Mira Sucharov &amp; Omar Dajani

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Jonathan Smolin

Associate Professor, Middle Eastern Studies

Affiliate, Jewish Studies

Contact

Education

Selected Publications

Works In Progress

Recent Public Speaking

Courses

Jonathan Smolin

Associate Professor, Middle Eastern Studies

Affiliate, Jewish Studies

Contact

Education

Selected Publications

Works In Progress

Recent Public Speaking

Courses

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