Dima Ayoub, Ph.D. (McGill University) is an Assistant Professor of Arabic and Director of the Middle East Studies Program at Middlebury College in Vermont, USA. Her research focuses on the importance of paratexts in the literary development of modern Arabic literature in translation. Her book manuscript titled Paratext and Power: Modern Arabic Literature in Translation rewrites the current literary history of modern Arabic literature through the lens of the paratext. In addition to her specialization in translation studies, her work also focuses on feminist and queer theory as well as postcolonial studies.

Paratext and Power: Modern Arabic Literature in Translation

Paratext & Power rewrites the literary and cultural history of modern Arabic literature in translation in the post-war period by centering the work of paratexts -arguing that these seemingly innocuous appendages like introductions, prefaces, glossaries, translator forewords and afterwords can actually reveal more about the politics of translation than the body of the text itself.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

2021 “Multilingual Others: Transliteration as Resistant Translation.” Multilingual Literature as World Literature. Edited by Wen-Chin Ouyang and Jane Hiddleston. London: Bloomsbury, 2021.

2020 Ayoub, Dima. “Politics of Paratextuality: The Glossary Between Translation and the Translational.” Journal of Arabic Literature. 51.1 (2020): 27-52.

2019 Ayoub, Dima. “Diasporic Slippages: Accent and Dialect in Translation.” Journal of Middle Eastern Literatures. 22.1 (2019): 23-35.

2019 Ayoub, Dima. “The (Un)Translatability of Translational Literature: Ahdaf Soueif’s The Map of Love between English and Arabic.” Translation Studies. 12.3 (2019): 308-320.

Forthcoming

Paratext and Power: Modern Arabic Literature in Translation. Book manuscript.

Peer-Reviewed Bibliographic Entries
George Eliot. Dictionary of Literary Biography: Orientalist Writers. Eds. Coeli Fitzpatrick and Dwayne Tunstall. Vol. 366 (2012). Detroit: Gale: 66-72.

Non-Peer-Reviewed Articles
Jandarat al-Marʾah. Al Akhbar Newspaper. March 8, 2011. http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/5874

Recent Publications:

Ayoub, Dima. “Politics of Paratextuality: The Glossary Between Translation and the Translational.” Journal of Arabic Literature. 51.1 (2020): 27-52.

Ayoub, Dima. “Diasporic Slippages: Accent and Dialect in Translation.” Journal of Middle Eastern Literatures. 22.1 (2019): 23-35.

Ayoub, Dima. “The (Un)Translatability of Translational Literature: Ahdaf Soueif’s The Map of Love between English and Arabic.” Translation Studies. 12.3 (2019): 308-320.

Recent Papers and Invited Presentations:

“Talking Gender: Fluidity, Pronouns, and the Arabic Language. Community Conversation. Lebanese American University New York City Head Quarters. New York City, NY. February 2020.

“Transliterating Right-to-Left Languages.” Talk delivered at NYU Abu Dhabi Winter Institute in Digital Humanities, New York University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. January 2020.

“Transliteration as Resistant Translation.” Talk delivered at Abdelkébir Khatibi: Literature & Theory conference, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. November 2019.

“Lebanon Protests.” Public conversation with Tarek El Ariss and Paul Salem. Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. November 2019.

“Paratext and Power in Arabic Literary Translation.” Lecture delivered at Forum Transregionale Studien, Europe in the Middle East—The Middle East in Europe (EUME), Berlin, Germany. July 2019.

“Digital Humanities and Arabic-English Translation.” Led workshop at Seminar für Semitistik und Arabistik, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany. July 2019

“Glossary in Translation.” Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities. University of Granada, Granada, Spain. July 2019.

“Glossing the Glossary: Digital Approaches to Paratexts and Power in Arabic Literature.” The Cultural Turn in Arabic Literary Production, Conference in Celebration of the 50^th Anniversary of the Journal of Arabic Literature, Columbia University, New York. April 2019.

“Digitizing Paratexts in Translation: Between Distant and Close Readings.” Histoire, langues et textométrie Colloque, Université Paris, Sorbonne, Paris. January 2019.

“Itinerant Paratexts in Translation.” Keynote lecture at Islamic Studies Within a Global Context Conference, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montréal. April 2018.