Pauline Homsi Vinson, Ph.D.

Teaching Areas: Arab American studies/literature; world literature, transnational literature, college writing

Research Areas: Arab American literature; The Thousand and One Nights, Shakespeare, and literary adaptations; culinary memoirs; and online pedagogy

Pauline Homsi Vinson is visiting assistant professor and interim director of the Center for Arab American Studies at the University of Michigan–Dearborn. Originally from Lebanon, Pauline has taught literature at universities in the U.S., Malaysia, and the U.A.E. Pauline is co-founder and current president of the Arab American Studies Association (AASA). She also co-founded and chaired the Global Arab and Arab American Literature forum at the MLA. Her research interests and publications include translations from Arabic to English, Arab American literature, The Thousand and One Nights, and Shakespeare, with attention to gender, race, migration, the environment, and literary adaptations. Her current project explores the subversive potential of storytelling in Arab American writing and is tentatively titled Transporting Tales: Echoes of the Thousand and One Nights in Contemporary Arab American Literature.

Education

• Ph.D., Northwestern University
• M.A., The University of California, Santa Barbara
• B.A. with honors and distinction in general scholarship, The University of California, Berkeley

Selected Publications

Book

Louise Cainkar, Pauline Homsi Vinson, and Amira Jarmakani, eds. Sajjilu Arab American: A Reader in SWANA Studies, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Forthcoming 2022.

Articles and Book Chapters

Pauline Homsi Vinson, “Arab American Literature, Storytelling, and the Paradox of Shahrazad.” In Sajjilu Arab American: A Reader in SWANA Studies, co-edited with Louise Cainkar, Pauline Homsi Vinson, and Amira Jarmakani. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, forthcoming 2022.

Pauline Homsi Vinson, "Arab American Literature." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Ed. Jon Butler. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2022.

Sarah M.A. Gualtieri and Pauline Homsi Vinson, “Introduction: Arab/Americas: Locations & Iterations.” Amerasia Journal special issue on Arab Americans vol. 44, no. 1, 2018, pp. vii-xxi.

Pauline Homsi Vinson, “Representations of Sexualities: United States.” Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (EWIC). General Editor. Suad Joseph; Guest Editor Sarah Gualtieri. Brill, Supplement XI, 2015.

Pauline Homsi Vinson, “Re-encountering Scheherazade: Gender, Cultural Mobility, and Narrative Transformations in Alia Yunis’s The Night Counter. Mashriq & Mahjar Special Issue on Gender and Mobility. Vol.2, no.1, 2014, pp. 55-76.

Pauline Homsi Vinson, “Voice, Narrative, and Political Critique: Etel Adnan’s Sitt Marie Rose and Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero.” In Etel Adnan: Critical Essays on the Arab-American Writer and Artist. Eds. Lisa Suhair Majaj and Amal Amireh. Pp. 176- 196. Jefferson, NC.: McFarland & Co., 2001.

Contributing Editor

2018 Guest editor, with Sarah M.A. Gualtieri, Amerasia Special Issue: Arab/Americas: Locations and Iterations, 44:1, vii-xxi.

2017 Guest editor, with Sarah M.A. Gualtieri, The Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures (EWIC); Supplement 16: Arab American Fictions.

2016 Guest editor, with Sarah M.A. Gualtieri, The Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures (EWIC); Supplement 14: Arab American Women and Representation.

2016 Special Section guest editor with Evelyn Alsultany and Louise Cainkar, Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East Migration, Special Issue: New Directions in Arab American Studies.; vol. 3, no. 2.

2000 – 2009 Contributing editor, Al Jadid: A Review & Record of Arab Culture and Arts.

Translations (from Arabic to English):

2005 Ghada Samman, “Woman as Scapegoat.”. Al Jadid 11.53, 11-12.

2005 Mona Mansa, “Hanan al-Shaykh Speaks of her Newest Novel,  ‘My Story is an Extended Commentary.’” Al Jadid 11.50/51, 4-10.

2002 Emily Nasrallah, “The Lebanese Abroad.”.Al Jadid 8.41, 16-17.