Dr. Iyas Nasser is a researcher of pre- and early Islamic poetry and classical Arabic literature. He is a postdoctoral fellow holding a Minerva fellowship at the Freie Universität Berlin, investigating the “extend simile” in the in the pre- and early Islamic poetry and the Quran.

Dr. Nasser has a BA from the Departments of Arabic Language and Literature and General and Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His MA degree in the Departments of Arabic Language and Literature focused on Early Arabic Poetry, with his thesis, written under the supervision of Prof. Albert Arazi, examining “the Hedonistic and the Fatalism in Early Wine Poetry”. His doctoral research, conducted in the same department under the supervision of Prof. Albert Arazi and Prof. MeirM. Bar-Asher, focused on the narrative dimension of the nasīb(the conventional opening of the poly-thematic pre- and early Islamic qaṣīda), investigating its forms and narrative components, such as the poet-narrator, plot, characters and space. Besides his academic research, Iyas Nasser is a poet who has published two Arabic-language poetry collections on themes such as love, women’s rights, and various classical literary motifs. Dr. Nasser has also taught for several years in the Arabic Language and Literature Department at the Hebrew University and at the David Yellin Academic College.

Nasser, Iyas.“Why Does the Poet Return to the Abandoned Campsite?”, Al-Karmil Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 37-38 (2016-2017), 167-194. The Department of Arabic Language and Literature at the University of Haifa (in Arabic).

Nasser, Iyas. “Despair as Consolation in Pre- and Early Islamic Poetry”, ARAM Periodical Journal for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies, University of Oxford (Forthcoming; in English).