Michael Allan , Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature

Profile

• Michael Allan received his Ph.D. from the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, with a specialization in modern Arabic and Francophone literature and film. Before joining COLT, he was a member of the Society of Fellows at Columbia University (2008-9), and previously served as a Presidential Intern at the American University in Cairo, where he was affiliated with the Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies (2000-1). His research focuses on colonialism, secularization and the formation of modern reading practices in Africa and the Middle East, and deals with material written in Arabic, French, English and Kiswahili. In both his research and teaching, he bridges textual analysis with social theory, and draws from methods in anthropology, film and visual culture, religion, and postcolonial studies. He has published articles on a range of topics: the Lumière Brothers’ films in Egypt, the problem of address in world literature (awarded the A. Owen Aldridge Prize by the American Comparative Literature Association), language in the writings of Frantz Fanon, and contemporary Lebanese video art. His current book project, Inventing World Literature, explores debates between French, British and Egyptian intellectuals over the place of literary reading in the modern world, and questions secular criticism against the backdrop of colonialism, liberal governance and education reform in Egypt. In addition to his primary research, he is also interested in global media studies, the intersection of literature and human rights, Third Worldism in Quebec literature and film, and the historiography of Swahili literature.

Education

University of California, Berkeley

• Ph.D., 2008

Brown University

• B.A., 2000

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Publications

Articles

• “Deserted Histories: The Great Pyramid and Early Film Form” Special Issue of Early Popular Visual Culture, 6:2, 159-170, July 2008.

• “ Reading With One Eye, Speaking With One Tongue: The Problem of Address in World Literature” Comparative Literature Studies, Volume 44, no. 1-2, Fall 2007

• “The Limits of Secular Criticism: Reflections on Literary Reading in a Colonial Frame” Townsend Center for the Humanities Newsletter, February 2007 http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/pubs/feb_07_nl.pdf

• “Fanon and the Flesh of Language: Towards a Material Linguistics of Colonial Subjection” Equinoxes , Number 4, Winter 2004

• “The Location of Lebanon: Portraits and Places in the Videography of Jayce Salloum” Parachute , Volume 108 Beyrouth_Beirut, Fall 2002, Simultaneously published as “Le Lieu Liban: Portraits et Sites dans L’Art Vidéo de Jayce Salloum” translated by Denis Lessard

Book Review

• On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era, The Journal of North African Studies, 12:2, June 2007

Courses

COLT 103 Introduction to Comparative Literature III: "Thinking Through Cinema"

• Writing in 1931, the French critic, George Duhamel described cinema as “a spectacle that demands no effort, that does not imply any sequence of ideas, that raises no questions, that evokes no deep feeling, that lights no light in the depths of any heart, that excites no hope, if not the ridiculous one of some day becoming a ‘star’ at Los Angeles.” Responding to Duhamel’s remarks over seventy-five years later, we might wonder how cinema has moved us to think differently. What relation does cinema set forth between seeing, feeling and understanding? In what ways is film instructive in helping us to see anew? This course explores both how different critics have thought about cinema and how cinema, in turn, alters thinking. The quarter will be divided into four parts: the first will address the spectacle of attraction in early and avant-garde cinema; the second will focus on affect in narrative film and melodrama; the third will address the film essay and documentary film; and the fourth will question aesthetic form in global cinema. Students will be required to attend a weekly screening outside of the ordinary class hours, in addition to preparing the various readings for each session. Readings and films by Walter Benjamin, Guy Maddin, Rey Chow, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andy Warhol, Carol Clover, Linda Williams, Christian Metz, André Bazin, Abbas Kiarostami, Alfred Hitchcock, Todd Haynes, Tom Gunning and MaryAnn Doane.

COLT 462/562 Cultural Intersections: “Orientalism: Politics, Sexuality and Religion”

• This course weaves together social theory, international politics, film and literature to analyze critically the imagination of civilizational difference between East and West. Beginning with Edward Said’s Orientalism, we will explore how civilizational rhetoric permeates discussions of political authority, sexuality and religion in the modern world. In texts ranging from Disney’s Aladdin to Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, the East has been figured as a land shrouded in mystery, the site of political despotism, heightened religiosity and unbridled sexuality. What animates these presumptions—and for whom? In what way do literary, filmic and philosophical texts affirm or contest these imaginings? Our goal is not necessarily to agree or disagree, but to examine the historical formation of Orientalism and to ask about possible worlds made thinkable outside the binarism of East and West. Readings include works by Edward Said, Wendy Brown, Montesquieu, Saba Mahmood, Tayeb Salih, Malek Alloula, Joseph Massad, Rifa’a al-Tahtawi, Ernst Renan, and Richard Burton.

COLT 470/570 Studies in Identity: “Multiculturalism: Representation and Recognition”

• Of what value is multiculturalism? In what ways are its values articulated, embodied and enforced—and with what future in mind? What categories make us different? Do these categories pertain across different traditions, places and histories? Can multiculturalism tolerate intolerance? Who or what is deemed intolerant? With what force should tolerance be enforced—and where? Our class will draw from law, poetry, film, essays, theater and novels to explore multiculturalism as the interaction between representation and recognition. Who or what determines what it means to be represented properly? How is recognition integral to identity formation? The first half of the course will look closely at the importance of stories, testimonials and narratives in the construction of identity, the liberal self and the national community. The second half will examine American secularism and the rhetoric of religious tolerance both in the United States as well as in its foreign policy. Readings include works by Charles Taylor, Toni Morrison, DW Griffith, Joan Scott, Judith Butler and Malcolm X.

COLT 615 Comp Lit Theory: "What's in a Wor(l)d? Transnationalism and Literary Theory"

• Our class will consider contemporary discussions in literary theory and trace scholarly methods for the transnational analysis of texts. Possible readings include works by Sartre, Fanon, Apter, Moretti, Glissant, Hofmeyr, Thiong’o, Spivak, Casanova, Liu, Said, Asad, Butler, Damrosch, Chakravarty, Hirschkind and Mahmood.