Nahrain Al-Mousawi
Education
- Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, University of California, Los Angeles
- M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies/Arabic Studies, University of Texas, Austin
- B.A. in English Literature, University of California, Berkeley
Research Interests
- World literature; Arabic and Anglophone literature of the Middle East and Africa; postcolonial and transnational studies; migration literature; global speculative fiction; Mediterranean studies.
Biography
Dr. Nahrain Al-Mousawi has been Associate Professor of Comparative Humanities at Habib University since 2025, having joined as Assistant Professor in 2022. At Habib, she teaches literature and writing courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels — including What Is World Literature?, Global Speculative Fiction, Migration Literature, Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature, and graduate seminars in Postcolonial Literature & Theory and Transnational Literature & Criticism — and serves on multiple award, curriculum, admissions, and hiring committees, in addition to sitting on the board of student journals.
Before Habib, Dr. Al-Mousawi was Assistant Professor of English Literature at the University of Balamand, Lebanon (2017–2020), and held postdoctoral fellowships as Visiting Faculty in Modern Arabic Literature & Culture at Washington University in St. Louis (2016–2017) and as an EUME Postdoctoral Fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures, Freie Universität Berlin (2015–2016), where she researched and wrote her book manuscript. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at UCLA.
Her book, The Two-Edged Sea: Heterotopias of Contemporary Mediterranean Migrant Literature (Gorgias Press, 2021), explores narratives of undocumented migration from Africa across the Mediterranean. She continues to publish academic chapters — including “Estranging Labor: The Gulf, Capital, & the Fantastic in Temporary People” (Routledge, forthcoming) and “Between Mediterranean Realism & Fantasy: Migrant Divides” (Routledge Companion to Migration Literature, 2024) — and has written on popular and literary culture from the MENA region for outlets including Al Jazeera, The National, Globe and Mail, and Chicago Tribune. In 2026, she spoke on borders, migration, and belonging at a roundtable hosted by the Aga Khan University in Pakistan, and has served since 2023 as an adviser to a Pakistan-based Migrant Collective.
Selected Publications
- “Estranging Labor: The Gulf, Capital, & the Fantastic in Temporary People,” in Narratives of Precarious Migrancy in the Global South, eds. Gigi Adair & Carly McLaughlin (Routledge, forthcoming).
- “Between Mediterranean Realism & Fantasy: Migrant Divides,” in Routledge Companion to Migration Literature, eds. Gigi Adair, Rebecca Fasselt, & Carly McLaughlin (Routledge, 2024).
- “Death at the Border: Making & Unmaking the Migrating Body,” Forum Transregionale Studien Essay Series 2016, no. 2 (Fall 2016).
- “Aesthetics of Migration: Street Art in Mediterranean Border Zones,” Logoi: Journal of Philosophy, English & Italian (Summer 2016).
- “The Diamond Pipeline: Africa & the Arab World,” Postcolonial Text 7, no. 2 (Summer 2012).
- Book: The Two-Edged Sea: Heterotopias of Contemporary Mediterranean Migrant Literature (Gorgias Press, 2021).
Fellowships & Awards
- Modern Arabic Literature & Culture Postdoctoral Fellowship, Washington University in St. Louis, 2016–2017
- EUME Postdoctoral Fellowship, Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures, Freie Universität Berlin, 2015–2016
Selected Service
- Speaker on academics working abroad, Stanford University, 2026
- Adviser, Pakistan-based Migrant Collective, 2023–2026
- Fellowship committee reviewer, Getty Scholar Application Review Committee, 2020
- Manuscript/article peer reviewer for Routledge, Liverpool University Press, The Journal of North African Studies, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, African Identities, and Millennium: Journal of International Studies
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