David Tresilian

David Tresilian gave a public lecture on modern Arabic literature as part of the Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival in Liverpool (UK) on 12 July.

David Tresilian has taught at Columbia University, New York, the American University of Cairo, Cairo University and the University of Paris XIII. He has been at the American University of Paris since 1999.

After graduate work at Oxford University in England in 20th century English Literature, he went to study Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he was a Nicolson Fellow. While there, he specialized in theory and criticism, particularly psychoanalysis and Marxism, working with Andreas Huyssen, Steven Marcus, Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak.

At AUP he teaches courses in the University’s English Foundation Program.

He has worked as a consultant for UNESCO’s Culture Sector, working for the Organisation at various times in Bhutan, Hungary, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Romania and Turkey as well as in Paris. In September 2004, he worked for UNESCO in Massouleh and Zibakenar, Islamic Republic of Iran, and in December 2005 he facilitated a development workshop for the Organisation in New Delhi, India.

Until 2006 he was editorial consultant to the Cairo Review of Books, a monthly digest of books and publications in Arabic, English and French put out by Al-Ahram newspapers in Cairo. He also writes regularly in Al-Ahram Weekly and has acted as a consultant for the newspaper and for the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria.

He has published translations from French and Arabic. His translation of Entre Scribes et écrivains: le champ littéraire dans l’Egypte contemporaine (Actes sud, 2003) by Richard Jacquemond will appear from the American University in Cairo Press in January 2008. His Brief Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature will appear from Saqi Books in London in Spring 2008.

Published in Al-Ahram Weekly, Cairo:

Arab elsewhere [review of 5ème biennale des cinémas arabes, Institut du monde arabe, Paris] 6 July 2000;

A view from Paris [interview with Ambassador Eric Rouleau in Paris] 18 July 2002;

Telling our stories [interview with Indian film director Mira Nair in Cairo] 9 January 2003;

Bourdieu and Algeria: an elective affinity [review of Pierre Bourdieu, Images d'Algérie, une affinité élective, Institut du monde arabe, Paris] 13 March 2003;

“The reality is really terrible” [interview in Paris with Mounir Bouchenaki, Assistant Director-General for Culture at UNESCO, on Iraq’s cultural heritage in the wake of the US-led invasion] 29 May 2003;

“Not the war on Iraq” [review of Irak, les médias en guerre edited by Olfa Lamloum (Paris: Actes sud, 2004)] 18 March 2004;

Sartre at the Bibliothèque nationale [review of Satre, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris] 21 April 2005;

Palestine: identities to come [review of Figures du Palestinien, identité des origines, identité de devenir by Elias Sanbar (Paris: Gallimard, 2005)] 16 June 2005;

In search of Algerian women [profile of Franco-Algerian writer Assia Djebar, elected to the Academie française in June 2005] 7 July 2005;

“La citation dans les Studies in Classic American Literature de D.H. Lawrence” [paper given at l’Université de Paris VII, November 1997] ;

“The European Context of D.H. Lawrence’s The Plumed Serpent” [paper given at l’Université du Littoral, May 1998];

“Being Estranged from England: the Case of D.H. Lawrence” [paper given at the American University of Paris, July 2005]

(not available at this time)