Department of English
Department of English
Jahan Ramazani

Jahan Ramazani

University Professor and Edgar F. Shannon Professor, Director of Modern and Global Studies
rr5m@virginia.edu
434 924-6652

Degrees

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

Books

Poetry in a Global Age. University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Poetry and Its Others: News, Prayer, Song, and the Dialogue of Genres, University of Chicago Press, 2014
A Transnational Poetics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009
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

Edited Works

Poetry and Race, special issue of NLH, 2019.
The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Poetry, Cambridge University Press, 2017
Song, special issue of NLH, 2015
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 10th., W. W. Norton, 2018
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th ed., Princeton University Press, 2012
The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, 3rd ed., W. W. Norton & Co., 2003

Recent articles

  • “The Poem as World.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Poem. Ed. Sean Pryor. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
  • “Self-Metaphorizing ‘American Sonnets.” Ed. Dora Malech and Laura Smith. In Sonnets from the American: An Anthology of Poetry and Essays. University of Iowa Press, forthcoming.
  • “Burying the Dead: The Waste Land, Ecocritique, and World Elegy.” The T. S. Eliot Studies Annual, vol. 4. Ed. Frances Dickey and Julia Daniel. 2022. https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/journals/id/116/volume/4/issue/1/article/67905/
  • “Poetry, (Un)Translatability, and World Literature.” The Cambridge History of World Literature, 2 vols. Ed. Debjani Ganguly. Cambridge University Press, 2021. 587-620.
  • “Yeats’s Asias: Modernism, Orientalism, Anti-Orientalism.” In Yeats and Asia. Ed. Seán Golden. Cork: Cork University Press, 2020; and forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of W. B. Yeats. Ed. Lauren Arrington and Matthew Campbell. Oxford University Press.
  • “A Student’s Journey with Stevens.” The Wallace Stevens Journal (2020).
  • “Poetry and Race: An Introduction.” NLH (2019).
  • “Persian Poetry, World Poetry, and Translatability.” In “World Poetics, Comparative Poetics,” special issue of University of Toronto Quarterly (2019).
  • “Lorna Goodison: Poet of Crossings.” Caribbean Quarterly (2018).
  • “Appiah’s Identities: An Introduction.” NLH (2018).
  • “Lyric Poetry: Intergeneric, Transnational, Translingual?” In “Lyric: Words and Worlds,” special issue of Journal of Literary Theory (2017).
  • "The Local Poem in a Global Age." Critical Inquiry (2017).
  • "'Cosmopolitan Sympathies': Poetry of the First Global War." Modernism/modernity (2016).
  • “Form.” In A New Vocabulary for Global Modernism. Ed. Eric Hayot and Rebecca Walkowitz. Columbia University Press (2016).
  • "Poetry and Tourism in a Global Age." NLH (2015).
  • "Code-Switching, Code-Stitching: A Macaronic Poetics?" Dibur Literary Journal, Stanford ARCADE (2015).
  • “Seamus Heaney’s Globe.” In special double issues of The Irish Review (2015) and of Irish Pages (2015), both on Seamus Heaney (2015).
  • “Modernist Inflections, Postcolonial Directions.” In The Cambridge History of Modernist Poetry. Ed. Alex Davis and Lee M. Jenkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2015).
  • “Irish Poetry and the News.”  In The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry. Ed. Fran Brearton and Alan Gillis (2012).
  • “Poetry, Prayer, and the News.” In The Oxford Handbook of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Ed. Cary Nelson (2012).
  • “Poetry and Postcolonialism.” In The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature. Ed. Ato Quayson (2012).
  •  “‘To Get the News from Poems’: Poetry as Genre.” In A Companion to Poetic Genre. Ed. Erik Martiny (2012).
  • “Poetry, Modernity, Globalization.” In The Oxford Handbook of Global Modernisms. Ed. Mark Wollaeger. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2012).
  • “‘Sing to Me Now’: Contemporary American Poetry and Song.” In “American Poetry, 2000-2009,” special issue of Contemporary Literature. Ed. Michael Davidson (2011).
  • "Charles Wright and the Poetry of Prayer." In "Charles Wright Tribute Issue." Northwest Review (2011).
  • “Nationalism, Transnationalism, and the Poetry of Mourning.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy. Ed. Karen Weisman. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2010).
  • “Edward Said and the Poetry of Decolonization.” In Edward Said: Emancipation and Representation. Ed. Adel Iskandar and Hakem Rustom (2010).

Recent Invited Lectures

  • “Code-Switching: A Poetics,” for the symposium “Global English,” Vrije University, Amsterdam, September 22, 2022.
  • “Burying the Dead: The Waste Land, Ecocritique, and World Elegy,” T. S. Eliot International Summer School, London, July 13, 2022
  • “World Elegy, Anticipatory Mourning, and Ecocritique,” for the conference “Anticipating Modernities,” Freie Universität, Berlin, July 7, 2022
  • “Community of the Bereaved: Elegy across Borders,” for the conference “Rethinking Lyric Communities,” University of Oxford, virtual, June 23, 2022
  • “Mourning, Translation, Elegy,” for the “Translation Symposium,” International Network for the Study of Lyric, virtual, June 9, 2022
  • “A Global Web of Elegies,” for conference “Encounters with the Lyric Form,” Stanford University, virtual, April 21, 2022
  • “A Life in Poetry,” for Provost’s Seminar Series on Academic Excellence, Willson Center for Humanities, University of Georgia, virtual, April 13, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH3roX_OtA4
  • “Reading the Poetry of a Global Age,” Modern and Contemporary Literature Research Seminar, videoconference on Poetry in a Global Age, University of Oxford, January 27, 2021
  • “Self-Metaphorizing ‘American’ Sonnets,” Sonnets from the American, international virtual conference, Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars, October 2, 2020.
  • “A Polytemporal, Polyspatial Poetics: Reading the Poetry of a Global Age,” Modern & Contemporary Colloquium, New York  University, November 7, 2019.
  • “Yeats’s Asias,” W. B. Yeats Society of New York, November 6, 2019.
  • “A Student’s Journey with Wallace Stevens,” “The Bogliasco Seminars on Wallace Stevens II: Experimental Transformations,” The Wallace Stevens Society, Bogliasco Foundation, Italy, June 18, 2019.
  • “Poetics for a Global Age,” Keynote, “The Between-ness of Lyric/L’Entre-Deux Lyric/Lyric am Dazwischen,” INSL (International Network for the Study of Lyric), University of Lausanne, Switzerland, June 4, 2019.
  • “A Polytemporal, Polyspatial Poetics,” Co-Sponsored by the Poetry and Poetics Workshop, the Transnational Contemporary Literature Workshop, and the Global Postcolonialisms Collective, Departments of English and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, April 7, 2019.
  • “Poetry, (Un)Translatability, and World Literature,” Kemp Malone Lecture, English Department, Emory University, Atlanta, March 21, 2019.
  • “On ‘Cosmopolitan Sympathies,’” for Symposium on “Cosmopolitan Sympathies: Poetry of the First Global War,” McGillicuddy Humanities Center, University of Maine, Orono, February 22, 2019.
  • “Yeats’s Asias: Modernism, Orientalism, Anti-Orientalism,” W. B. Yeats International Summer School, Sligo, Ireland, July 23, 2018
  • “T. S. Eliot, World Poetry, and (Un)Translatability,” T. S. Eliot International Summer School, University of London, London, July 12, 2018
  • “Wallace Stevens, the Planet, and the Ecological Thought,” Keynote, “Wallace Stevens as World Literature” conference, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, May 31, 2018
  • “Gathering Linguistic Diversities: The Poem, the World, and Translation,” Keynote, Congress of the Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, May 26, 2018
  • “Poetry, (Un)Translatability, and World Literature,” History and Forms of Lyric Series, University of Chicago, Chicago, April 11, 2018
  • “The Language of Lyric: Untranslatable or World Literature?” Literary Translation Seminar Lecture Series, Romance Languages, Boston University, February 9, 2018
  • “A Bridge Taken for a Wall, a Wall Taken for a Bridge: On Persian Art, Poetry, and Translation,” Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, Stanford University, December 7, 2017
  • “Poetry, (Un)Translatability, and World Literature,” Department of Comparative Literature and Department of English, Yale University, November 13, 2017
  • “Poetry, (Un)Translatability, and World Literature,” New York-New Jersey Modernism Seminar, Rutgers University and Columbia University, October 19-20, 2017
  • “The Place of Poetry in ‘World Literature’: Questions of (Un)Translatability,” Department of English, Vanderbilt University, September 28, 2017
  • “Poetry’s Crossings: Transnational, Transatlantic, Translingual, Translational,” Keynote for the bienniel Symbiosis conference, University of Buffalo and Daemen College, Buffalo, New York, July 7, 2017
  • “Lyric, (Un)Translatability, and World Literature,” Keynote for the inaugural conference of the International Network for the Study of Lyric, “Situating Lyric,” Boston University, June 9, 2017
  • “Yeats’s Asias: Modernism, Orientalism, Antiorientalism,” Keynote for the International Yeats Society conference “Yeats and Asia,” Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, December 17, 2016
  • “The Local Poem in a Global Age,” Keynote for the conference “The Environment and Human Migration: Rethinking the Politics of Poetry,” University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany, November 25, 2016
  • "Poetry, War, and the Local in a Global Age," Keynote for the Conference of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures, University College Cork, Ireland, July 25, 2016, and Yeats International Summer School, Sligo, Ireland, July 29, 2016
  • "The Place of Poetry in Postcolonial Studies: Resistance, Literary Form, and Lorna Goodison as an Example," Plenary for the Irish-Caribbean Connections Conference, University College Cork, Ireland, July 22, 2016
  • "Poetry, the Global South, and the Transnational Migration of Form," Duke-UVA-Bologna Summer School in Global Studies and Critical Theory, University of Bologna, Italy, July 1, 2016
  • “Poetry and the Global Migration of Form,” Keynote, “Studying Transnational Poetics: Practices and Methods 2015,” VU University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, June 12, 2015, and for “The Languages of Literature: Attridge at 70,” University of York, England, May 24, 2015
  • “Close Reading, Distant Reading, and the Transnational Migration of Form,” John Edward Taylor Lecture, English Department, University of Manchester, Manchester, England, April 30, 2015
  • “Poetry, Close Reading, and the Transnational Migration of Form,” EU Project on Interdisciplinary Innovation in Culture Studies, English Department, Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic, March 9, 2015; and English Department, the Charles University, Prague, March 11, 2015
  • “Between Speech and Writing: The Poetics of Poetic Code Switching,” for the conference “Written Word, Spoken Word: Rethinking the Representation of Speech in Literature,” Hebrew@Stanford, Stanford University, Stanford, February 27, 2015

Recent Interviews and Videos

Honors

  • American Philosophical Society, 2022
  • American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2016
  • Thomas Jefferson Award, University of Virginia, 2011
  • Harry Levin Prize, American Comparative Literature Association, 2011
  • 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
Specialties
20th C American, 20th C British, African, Caribbean American, Irish, Modern & Contemporary, Modernism, Poetry, Postcolonial, World Anglophone
Office Address/Hours
410 Bryan Hall / Outside by appointment, MW 4:50-5:50 and other times, as needed
Areas of Study