Michael Allan is the Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies at the University of Oregon and editor of the journal Comparative Literature. His research focuses on debates in world literature, postcolonial studies, media theory, and visual culture, primarily in Africa and the Middle East. He is the author of In the Shadow of World Literature: Sites of Reading in Colonial Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2016) and Cinema before the World: The Global Routes of the Lumière Brothers (Fordham University Press, 2026). His current project, How Language Became Data, examines communications infrastructures that connect Arabic to global information networks. Zeina G. Halabi is a writer, editor, and scholar of modern Arabic literature. Her research explores the contemporary legacy of 20th century emancipatory traditions, texts, and figures, with a regional focus on Egypt and the Levant. She is the author of The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual: Prophecy, Exile, and the Nation (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), and articles in journals including Journal of Arabic Literature (2014)and Middle Eastern Literatures (2016),as well as in edited volumes and anthologies including The Arab Renaissance (2018) and Commitment and Beyond: Reflections On/Of the Political in Arabic Literature Since the 1940s (2015).

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• Introduction Michael Allan and Zeina G. Halabi; Part I. When? The Time of Modern Arabic Literature: 1. Nahda Hannah Scott Deuchar; 2. Modernity Maha AbdelMegeed; 3. Futures Teresa Pepe; Part II. What? The Languages of Modern Arabic Literature: 4. Fusha Kristen Brustad; 5. ʿAmmiyya Noha Radwan; 6. Darija and Tamazight Brahim El Guabli; 7. Translation Anna Ziajke Stanton; Part III. Where? The Geography of Modern Arabic Literature: 8. Mashriq Yasmine Khayyat; 9. Maghrib Samia Charfi; 10. Khalij Moneera al-Ghadeer; 11. Exile Johanna Sellman; Part IV. How? The Media of Modern Arabic Literature: 12. Print Culture Hala Auji; 13. Poetry Jeff Sacks; 14. Novel Rebecca Johnson.