Michael D. Cooperson, Ph.D.
Professor of Arabic

Office: 376A Humanities
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1511
310.206.1383 - phone
310.206.6456 - fax
cooperso@humnet.ucla.edu

EDUCATION

EMPLOYMENT

2004-present Professor of Arabic, University of California, Los Angeles

2001-2004 Associate Professor of Arabic, University of California, Los Angeles

1995-2001 Assistant Professor of Arabic, University of California, Los Angeles

1994-1995 Visiting Assistant Professor of Arabic, Dartmouth College

1991, 1994 Instructor, School of Arabic, Middlebury College

1990-1994 Teaching Fellow in Arabic, Harvard College

RECENT GRANTS AND AWARDS

2001 UCLA Faculty Senate Grant

1999 UCLA Dean’s Marshal Award (for scholarship and teaching)

1996 UCLA Faculty Senate grant

Publications

BOOKS

Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophet in the Age of al-Ma’mÙn.  Cambridge University Press, 2000. Reviewed in:

Al-‘Arabiyya 33 (2000): 107-110 (Muhammad Qasim Zaman)
Rivista degli Studi Orientali 74/2000 (2001): 218-219 (Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti)
Biography 24.3 (Summer 2001): 609-613 (Tayeb El-Hibri)
Journal of Islamic Studies 12: 3 (2001): 322-324 (A.H. Johns)
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70:1 (March 2002): 203-208 (John Renard)
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 65: 3 (2002): 572-574 (Jawid Mojaddedi)
Journal of the American Oriental Society 122: 3 (2002): 648-649 (Paul Cobb)
Islamic Law and Society 9 (2002) 3: 417-420 (Jonathan Berkey)
Oriens Christianus 86 (2002): 295-296 (Franz-Christoph Muth)
Copenhagen 64 (2003): 261-262 (Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila)
Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 14 (2003): 488 (Andras Kaplony)

Arabic translation:
Fann al-tarÁjim fi l-‘arabiyyah.  Cairo: Supreme Council on Culture, 2005.

Al-Ma'mun.  Oxford:  One World Books, 2005.

CO-AUTHORED BOOK

Interpreting the self : autobiography in the Arabic literary tradition.  Ed. Dwight F. Reynolds.  Coauthored by Kristen E. Brustad, Michael Cooperson, Jamal Elias, Nuha Khouri, Joseph Lowry, Nasser Rabbat, Dwight F. Reynolds, Devin Stewart, and Shawkat M. Toorawa.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

CO-EDITED BOOK

The Dictionary of Literary Biography: Arabic Literary Culture, 500-915.  Ed. Michael Cooperson and Shawkat M. Toorawa.  Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.

CHAPTERS IN EDITED WORKS

 “Classical Arabic Biography.”  In Understanding Near Eastern Literatures: A Spectrum of Interdisciplinary Approaches.  Ed. Beatrice Gruendler and Verena Klemm.  Wiesbaden:  Reichert, 2000: 177-87.

 “Texts without illustrations: The visual imagination in classical Arabic biography.”  Princeton Papers. Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies VIII (2001): 7-20.  Also published in Islamic Art and Literature, ed.  Oleg Grabar and Cynthia Robinson.  Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2001: 7-20.

“Probability, Plausibility, and ‘Spiritual Communication’ in Classical Arabic Biography.” On Fiction and Adab in Medieval Arabic Literature.  Ed. Philip F. Kennedy.  Wiesbaden:  Harrasowitz, 2005.

ARTICLES

“al-KhiÔÁb niyÁbatan ‘an al-Ákhar” (“Speaking for the other”).  Majallat al-QÁhirah 124 (1993): 58-65. 
                 
“The Monstrous Births of Aladdin.” The Harvard Review of Middle Eastern and Islamic Affairs 1:1 (1994): 67-86. Republished in Ulrich Marzolph, ed.  The Arabian Nights Reader.  Detroit:  Wayne State University Press, 2006: 265-282.

“Baghdad in Rhetoric and Narrative.” Muqarnas 13 (1996): 99-113.                  
                                                           
“The purported autobiography of Íunayn b. IsÎÁq.” Edebiyat 7:2 (1996): 235-49.           
                                                                             
“AÎmad Ibn Íanbal and Bishr al-ÍÁfÐ: A case study in biographical traditions.” Studia Islamica 86 (1997/2): 71-101.                             

“Remembering the Future: Arabic Time Travel Literature.” Edebiyat 8 (1998): 171-189.

“Two Abbasid trials:  AÎmad Ibn Íanbal and Íunayn b. IsÎÁq.” Al-Qantara.  Revista de estudios àrabes.  XXII, 2 (2001): 375-393.

“The tomb of al-Ma’mÙn in Tarsus: A preliminary report.” In Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies, Cambridge 6-10 July 2002.  Leuven: Peeters, 2004.

“Al-Ma’mÙn, the Pyramids, and the Hieroglyphs.” In Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies.  Leuven:  Peeters, forthcoming.

TRANSLATIONS

Abdelfattah Kilito, “Speaking to Princes: Al-Yusi and Mawlay Ismail.” In the Shadow of the Sultan, ed. Rahma Bourqia and Susan Gilson Miller.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard UP, 1999.  Pp. 30-46.  (Translation of Abdelfattah Kilito, “Parler au prince: Al-Yousi et Mawlay Ismail.”)

Abdelfattah Kilito, The Author and His Doubles: Essays on Classical Arabic Culture. Syracuse University Press, 2001.  (Translation of L’Auteur et ses doubles.  Essais sur la culture arabe classique [Paris:  Editions du Seuil, 1985].)

ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES

Adab, algebra, Ibn al-Haytham, al-Ghazzali, Ibn Rushd, and Ibn Sina. The Dictionary of Global Culture, ed.Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Knopf, 1997.

Íunayn b. IsÎÁq; Translation, Medieval. Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey.  London:  Routledge, 1998. 

al-ShanfarÁ, Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, and Ibn Sa‘d. The Dictionary of Literary Biography: Arabic Literary Culture, 500-915. Ed. Michael Cooperson and Shawkat M. Toorawa.  Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.

Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Oliver Leaman.  London:  Thoemmes Continuum, 2006.

Ibn Sa‘d, Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, Autobiographical Writings. Medieval Islamic Civilization:  An Encyclopedia (Routledge, 2005, 2006).

REVIEWS

Stefan Sperl, Mannerism in Medieval Arabic Poetry. Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, 24:2 (1990): 257-58.           
Magda al-Nowayhi, Ibn KhÁfaja:  A literary analysis. Al-‘Arabiyya 28 (1995): 129-131.

Hasan al-AmÐn, al-RiÃÁ wa 'l-Ma’mÙn wa-wilÁyat al-‘ahd wa-ÒafahÁt min al-tarÐkh al-‘AbbÁsÐ. al-‘UÒÙr al-WuÒtÁ 9:2 (1997): 45-46.

Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East: Studies in Honor of George Krotkoff.  Ed. Asma Afsaruddin and A. H. Mathias Zahniser.  Journal of Arabic Literature 29 (1998), 90-94.

Issa J. Boullata and Terri DeYoung, eds.  Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Literature.  Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 32 (1998): 178-79.

Richard C. Hovannisian and Georges Sabagh, eds.  The Thousand and One Nights in Arabic literature and society. Al-Abhath XLVII (1999): 85-92.

Roger Allen, The Arabic Literary Heritage. Al-‘Arabiyya 32 (1999); reprinted in Al-Ahram Weekly 464 (January 13-19, 2000).

Jaroslav Stetkevych, Muhammad and the Golden Bough:  Reconstructing Arabian Myth. Al-‘Arabiyya 33 (2000): 119-121.

Geert Jan van Gelder, God’s Banquet: Food in Classical Arabic Literature. Al-‘Arabiyya 32 (2001) 129-31.

Nimrod Hurwitz, The Rise of Hanbalism:  Piety into Power.  Islamic Law and Society 12:1 (2005).

Boaz Shoshan, The Politics of Islamic Historiography:  Deconstructing ÓabarÐ’s History.  Speculum 81: 4 (2006): 1255-56.