Jahan Ramazani

(1988)
Edgar F. Shannon Professor
Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Postcolonial Literature
Chair of the Department

Degrees

Ph.D. Yale, 1988
M.Phil. Yale, 1986
M.Phil. Oxford, 1983
B.A. Virginia, 1981

Books

  • A Transnational Poetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming in 2009.
  • The Twentieth Century and After in The Norton Anthology of English Literature (with Jon Stallworthy), Norton, 2006.
  • The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, 2 vols. (with late editors Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair). Norton, 2003.
  • The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry in English. University of Chicago Press, 2001.
  • Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney. University of Chicago Press, 1994.
  • Yeats and the Poetry of Death: Elegy, Self-Elegy, and the Sublime. Yale University Press, 1990.

Articles

  • “Poetry, Modernity, Globalization.” Forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of GlobalModernisms. Ed. Mark Wollaeger. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • “Nationalism, Transnationalism, and the Poetry of Mourning.” Forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy. Ed. Karen Weisman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • “Poetry and Decolonization.” Forthcoming in A Concise Companion to Post-War British and Irish Poetry. Ed. Nigel Alderman and C. D. Blanton. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • “Edward Said and the Poetry of Decolonization,” forthcoming in Edward Said: Emancipation and Representation, ed. Adel Iskandar and Hakem Rustom.
  • “Poetry and Decolonization, forthcoming in ”A Concise Companion to Post-War British and Irish Poetry, ed. Nigel Alderman and C. D. Blanton.
  • "Black British Poetry and the Translocal," The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry (2007), ed. Neil Corcoran.
  • "Traveling Poetry," in Globalism on the Move, special issue of Modern Language Quarterly (2007).
  • "Modernist Bricolage, Postcolonial Hybridity,"Modernism and Transnationalisms, ed. Simon Gikandi, special issue of Modernism/Modernity(2006), and Modernism and Colonialism: British and Irish Literature, 1889-1939 (2007), ed. Richard Begam and Michael Valdez Moses.
  • “Caliban’s Modernity: Postcolonial Poetry of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean,” A Cambridge Companion to Modernist Poetry (2007), ed. Alex Davis and Lee M. Jenkins.
  • “Afterword: ‘When There Are So Many We Shall Have to Mourn,’” Modernism and Mourning (2006), ed. Patricia Rae.
  • "A Transnational Poetics," Transnational Citizenship and the Humanities, ed. Wai Chee Dimock, special issue of American Literary History (2006).
  • “Self-Theorizing Poetry: Yeats’s Ars Poetica in The Green Helmet and Other Poems.” Yeats Annual (2005).
  • “Remaking a Norton Anthology,” The Virginia Quarterly Review (2004).
  • “Contemporary Postcolonial Poetry,” A Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry, ed. Neil Roberts (Blackwell, 2001).
  • "Metaphor and Postcoloniality: The Poetry of A.K. Ramanujan," Contemporary Literature (1998).
  • "Is Yeats a Postcolonial Poet?" Raritan (1998).
  • "The Wound of History: Walcott's Omeros and the Postcolonial Poetics of Affliction," PMLA (1997).

Conference Papers and Invited Talks

  • “The Global, the Transnational, and the Stretch of Poetry,” English Department and Graduate Colloquia for Post-Colonial Studies and Twentieth-Century Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, April 10, 2008
  • “Tropes and Teams: Teaching Poetry,” Last Lecture Series, Rotunda, University of Virginia, March 24, 2008
  • “Poetry, Modernity, Globalization,” NLH Conference on “Literary History in the Global Age,” University of Virginia, March 15, 2008
  • “Louise Bennett: The National Poet as Transnational?” Plenary Address to Louise Bennett Conference, University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, January 10, 2008
  • “Poetry and Globalization,” MLA panel introduced, organized, and chaired for MLA Poetry Division Executive Committee, Chicago, December 29, 2007           
  • “The Stretch of Poetry,” for the panel “Modernism in the World,” MLA, Chicago, December 28, 2007
  • “Nationalism, Transnationalism, and the Poetry of Mourning,” Connelly Lecture in English, Grinnell College, Iowa, October 5, 2007           
  • “Poetry, Modernity, Globalization,” Connelly Lecture in English, Grinnell College, Iowa, October 4, 2007
  • “Christopher Okigbo’s Transnational Poetics: Modernism, Postcolonialism, and Globalization,” Keynote Address, Christopher Okigbo International Conference, Harvard University, Boston University, University of Massachusetts, Boston, and Wellesley College, Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, September 22, 2007
  • “Caliban’s Modernities, Postcolonial Poetries,” English Department, York University, York, England, June 17, 2007
  • “Modernist Alienation or Subaltern Solidarity?: Postcolonial Poetry in English,” Postcolonial Theory Seminars, June 14, 2007
  • “Poetry, Travel, Transnationalism,” English Department, Stanford University, Stanford, May 19, 2007
  • “Lyric Poetry and Globalization,” Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre Conference on “Authenticity and the Lyric Voice,” Oxford, May 12, 2007
  • “Poetry, Travel, Transnationalism,” Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University, Belfast, May 3, 2007 
  • “Debating Postcolonial Poetry: Derek Walcott and Empire,” English Department, University of Zagreb, Croatia, April 3, 2007           
  • “Irish Poets: National or Transnational? Postcolonial or Post-Postcolonial?” English Department, University of Zagreb, Croatia, April 5, 2007
  • “Traveling Poetry,” Modernism Seminar, English Faculty, Oxford University, February 21, 2007, and Americanist Seminar, Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University, March 8, 2007
  • “Traveling Poetries,” for Poetry Division session “Poetry and Transnationalism” chaired at MLA, Philadelphia, December 29, 2006
  • “Blackening Britain: Poetry and the Translocal,” Dolman Lecture, Department of English, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, October 27, 2006           
  • “Who’s In, Who’s Out? Anthologizing Modern and Contemporary Poetry,” Faculty Author Series, Colonnade Club, University of Virginia, October 17, 2006           
  • “Modernist Bricolage, Postcolonial Hybridity,” Lectures in Criticism Series, Boston University, September 28, 2006
  • Roundtable Participant, “What Can a Journal Essay Do?” MLA Convention, Washington, D.C., December 28, 2005
  • Respondent, “New Approaches to Elegy,” MLA Convention, Washington, D.C., December 28, 2005
  • “Caliban among the Modernists: Postcolonial Poetry of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean,” Shannon-Clark Lecture, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, October 6, 2005           
  • Keynote Address, Jefferson Scholars 25th Anniversary Reunion, University of Virginia, September 29, 2005
  • “Modernist Bricolage, Postcolonial Hybridity,” English Department, Dartmouth College, May 9, 2005
  • “Why Literature Matters: A Cross-Cultural Poetics,” for the symposium “Why Literature Matters,” Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University, April 1-2, 2005
  • “Who’s In, Who’s Out?: Anthologizing Modern and Contemporary Poetry,” English Department, Wake Forest University, January 27, 2005; English Department, Carl Benson Lecture on Twentieth-Century Literature, Auburn University, February 24, 2005; and Honors Program, University of Alabama, Birmingham, February 25, 2005           
  • “Poetry and Decolonization,” for “Cultural Strategies and Poetic Communities,” MLA Convention, Philadelphia, December 28, 2004            “Lyric Poets, Cross-Cultural Poetics,” for “Redefining Lyric in the Twenty-First Century: A Roundtable,” MLA Convention, Philadelphia, December 28, 2004                     
  • “Poetry and Decolonization,” English Department and International Studies Department, Macalester College, Saint Paul, Minnesota, November 4, 2004
  • “Remapping Modern and Contemporary Poetry,” Percy G. Turnbull Memorial Lecture, Johns Hopkins University, October 26, 2004
  • “Edward Said, Poetry, and Decolonization,” for symposium “How to Practice Postcolonial Theory in a Secular Way: In Memory of Edward Said,” Philosophy Department, DePaul University, Lincoln Park Campus, Chicago, Illinois, October 9, 2004
  • “Modernist Bricolage, Postcolonial Hybridity,” English Department, Duke University, March 23, 2004            
  • “Postcolonialism, Modernism, and the Poetics of Hybridity,” University of Missouri- Columbia, Keynote Address, Literature of the Margins. February 20, 2004“Modernist Bricolage, Postcolonial Hybridity,” MLA Convention, San Diego, December 29, 2003 
  • “Irish Poets, the Postcolonial, and the Post-Postcolonial,” for panel on Postcolonial Ireland, “Re-Imagining Ireland,” Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, May 10, 2003 
  • “Modern Poets, Cross-Cultural Poetics,” Vanderbilt University, Nashville, January 30, 2003
  • “Modern Poetry, Citizenship, and Transnationalism,” American Cultures Series, University of Florida, Gainesville, January 16, 2003
  • “Irish Poets, Cross-Cultural Poetics,” for panel “Modern Irish Poetry: Transnational Connections,” MLA Convention, New York, December 28, 2002
  • “Modern Poets, Cross-Cultural Poetics,” Lorna F. McGuire Lecture, Connecticut College, November 14, 2002
  • Respondent, Contemporary Revisions of Modernism, Modernist Studies
    Association, Seminar, October 12, 2001
  • “The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry in English,” Virginia Foundation for the
    Humanities, April 3, 2001Moderator, “Crossing Artistic Borders: Film, Architecture, and Poetry,” Women and Iranian Cinema, Conference at the University of Virginia, March 31, 2001
  • “Denationalizing Modern Poetry: A Postcolonial Poetics,” for panel “Postnational Perspectives on Modern Poetry,” MLA Convention, Washington, D.C., December 29, 2000
  • “South Asian Poetry and the Poetics of Postcolonial Memory,” for panel “South Asian Poetry in English,” MLA Convention, Washington, D.C., December 30, 2000
  • “The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry in English,” Harvard University, Humanities Center, November 30, 2000
  • “Tropes and Teams: Teaching Poetry through Classroom Debate,” ALSC Conference, Chicago, October 28, 2000           
  • “Denationalizing Modern Poetry,” for panel “Modern Poetry and Postnationalism,” Modernist Studies Association Conference, Philadelphia, October 14, 2000
  • “Louise Bennett’s Anancy Poetics: Irony, Broad Talk, and Postcoloniality,” for panel “English-Language West Indian Poetry: Walcott and Bennett,” Caribbean Studies Association Conference, St. Lucia, May 31, 2000
  • “Teaching and Improvisation,” for panel “The Legacy of Yale Teachers,” Yale Graduate English Reunion, New Haven, May 13, 2000           
  • “The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry in English,” Modernist Symposium, University of Maryland, College Park, September 25, 1999           
  • “The Poet as ‘Native’ Anthropologist,” paper for division session, “Anthropology, Literature, and the Question of Diaspora,” MLA Convention, San Francisco, December 29, 1998           
  • “Consolations of Elegiac Historiography,” response to special session, “Mourning the Past:  Elegy, Trauma, and Historiography,” MLA Convention, San Francisco, December 28, 1998

Honors

  • Senior Fellow, Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University, Spring 2007
  • Inaugural Jefferson Scholars Foundation Faculty Prize, 2005
  • Mayo Distinguished Teaching Professor, 2001-2004
  • Guggenheim Fellow, 2000-2001
  • Fellow in Residence, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Summer 1991, Spring 2001
  • William Riley Parker Prize, MLA, 1997
  • Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award, 1995
  • Lilly Teaching Fellow, 1993-1994
  • NEH Fellow, 1992-1993
  • Whiting Fellow, 1987-1988
  • Prize Teaching Fellow, 1986-1987
  • Rhodes Scholar, 1981-1983