Professor Geert Jan van Gelder FBA

Middle Eastern and African Languages and Literatures Middle East

Fellow type: UK Fellow
Year elected: 2005
Sections: Africa, Asia and the Middle East

Summary

Born in Amsterdam in 1947, Geert Jan van Gelder studied Semitic Languages (with Arabic as main subject) at the Universities of Amsterdam and Leiden (doctorate Leiden, 1982). He was employed as Lecturer in Arabic at the University of Groningen from 1975 until 1998, when he was elected Laudian Professor of Arabic, University of Oxford and became a Professorial Fellow of St John's College. He retired from the Laudian Chair in 2012 and returned to the Netherlands in 2015. He has published widely on Classical Arabic Literature, especially belles-lettres, poetry, poetics, stylistics, and the history of genres and themes.

Current post

Laudian Professor of Arabic Emeritus, University of Oxford

Past appointments

University of Oxford Laudian Professor of Arabic

1998 -

University of Oxford Laudian Professor of Arabic, University of Oxford

1998 -

University of Oxford Laudian Professor of Arabic Emeritus, University of Oxford

1995 -

University of Groningen, Netherlands Lecturer in Arabic

1975 - 1998

University of Amsterdam

1973 - 1975

Publications

Abu l-`Ala' al-Ma`arri, The Epistle of Forgiveness, ed. and tr. (with Gregor Schoeler) New York, 2013

Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology New York, 2013

Sound and Sense in Classical Arabic Poetry Wiesbaden, 2012

Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem 1982

The Bad and the Ugly: Attitudes towards Invective Poetry (Hija) in Classical Arabic Literature 1988

Close Relationships: Incest and Inbreeding in Classical Arabic Literature 2005

Other Fellows of the British Academy

Professor Harri Englund FBA

African-language political and moral thought; the historical-linguistic translation of freedom, equality and human rights; the racial and humanitarian politics of Christian missions in 19th-century Africa

Dr Miranda Morris FBA

Dr Miranda Morris' research interests focus on the six unwritten Semitic languages of southern Arabia and Soqotra, known as the Modern South Arabian Languages (MSAL), and the fast-disappearing knowledge systems and cultural practices of their speakers.

Professor Samuel Lieu FBA

History of religions, especially of Manichaeism and Christianity, in Central Asia and China; history of Late Roman and Early Byzantine Near East; history of the Silk Road

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