Reza Taher-Kermani, PhD

Assistant Professor of 18th and 19th Century British Literature (LTA), English

Biography    Teaching activities    Research activities    Publications   

I am a scholar of world literature with a primary focus on the engagement between nineteenth-century British literature and culture and the cultures of the non-western world that Britain encountered, traded with, and sometimes ruled in this period. Within this arrangement, I have a particular interest in Anglo-Persian (Iranian) cultural and literary contacts, in the ways in which medieval Persian poetry was received, reproduced, and represented in English poetry of the long nineteenth century.

My first book, The Persian Presence in Victorian Poetry (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is a study of the manifestations of Persia in Victorian poetry. The book draws on literary, historical, and cross-cultural studies to explore the ways in which Persia, and the multitude of notions associated with it, figure in Victorian poetry. As well as a monograph, I have published peer-reviewed articles in academic journals such as Essays in Criticism, The Review of English Studies, Victorian Literature and Culture, Iranian Studies, Middle Eastern Literatures, Translation and Literature, and Victoriographies. 

My second book project, Women’s Writing and Medieval Persian Poetry, is a study of women’s engagement with Persian literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

Before joining Concordia, I worked on the project “Iranian Women Poets” at the University of Toronto. In the years prior, I taught English, Persian, and world literature at Nazarbayev University (Kazakhstan), NIE (Singapore), Shahid Beheshti University (Iran), and the University of Bristol (United Kingdom).

Education

BA, MA, PhD
University of Sheffield (UK), University of Bristol (UK)

Fall 2021
ENGL 326: Studies in 18th-Century British Literature
ENGL 331: 18th- and 19th-Century Writing by Women
ENGL 332: Studies in 19th-Century British Literature

Spring 2022
ENGL 331: 18th- and 19th-Century Writing by Women
ENGL 334: Studies in 19th-Century British Prose
ENGL 441: Forms of 18th- and 19th-Century Fiction

Research Interests

nineteenth-Century English literature
medieval Persian poetry
empire and colonialism
women's writing
translation studies

Books

Women’s Writing and Medieval Persian Poetry (in progress)

The Persian Presence in Victorian Poetry. Edinburgh University Press: 2020.

Peer-Reviwerd Articles

"'In the Midst of Sublime Abstractions’: On Gertrude Bell’s Poems from the Divan of Hafiz” (forthcoming 2022)

“‘Better a Live Sparrow than a Stuffed Eagle’: On Edward FitzGerald’s ‘Bird-Parliament’”, Essays in Criticism. Oxford University Press (forthcoming January 2022)

“Review Essay: Emerson in Iran: The American Appropriation of Persian Poetry”, Iranian Studies, 54/5-6. Routledge: 2021.

“Why the Oxus? On the Majestic River of Arnold’s ‘Sohrab and Rustum’”, The Review of English Studies, 69/289. Oxford University Press: 2018.

“The Rubáiyát: A Labour of Love”, Victoriographies, 7/1. Edinburgh University Press: 2017.

“‘A Thin Disguise’: On Robert Browning’s Ferishtah’s Fancies”, Victorian Literature and Culture, 44/2. Cambridge University Press: 2016.

“The Persian Presence in Nineteenth-Century English Poetry: A Taxonomy”, Iranian Studies, 49/1. Routledge: 2016.

“Persia by Way of Paris: On Matthew Arnold’s ‘Sohrab and Rustum’”, Middle Eastern Literatures, 18/1. Routledge: 2015.

“FitzGerald’s Anglo-Persian Rubáiyát”, Translation & Literature, 23/3. 2014: Edinburgh University Press: 2014.

Book Chapters

“Omar Khayyám”, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, ed. by L. Spampinato. vol. 11. Gale: 2011.