May Hawas

BA (Alexandria), MA (AUC), PhD (Leuven)

College roles

Valerie Eliot Fellow (A)
College Lecturer in English
Director of Studies in English (Part IB; II)
Postgraduate Mentor

University roles

University Assistant Professor in World and Global Literatures
Postgraduate Mentor

Biography

Dr May Hawas studied English and Comparative Literature in Alexandria and Cairo before moving to Leuven University for her PhD in Comparative and World Literature.

Before coming to Cambridge, May taught in Egypt, Germany, France, Italy and the United States. She is currently Lecturer in World and Global Literatures at the Faculty of English, and Valerie Eliot Fellow at Newnham College.

Research Interests

Dr May Hawas is a scholar of comparative literature, with particular interest in world literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century.

She is the author of various books and articles, which have ranged in topic across the literary criticism and history of the novel; postcolonialism and empire; literature and politics; nationalisms and nation-formation; pedagogy and the formation of a public; and the historical relations between Europe, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Her current book project is about cosmopolitanism, citizenship and the literary canon.

Selected publications include Politicising World Literature: Egypt, Between Pedagogy and the Public and The Rouledge Companion to World Literature and World History.