About
Ph.D. Program: Arabic Language and Literature
Before attending the program in the Fall of 2012, Abdulkarim worked as an editor in Saudi Arabic, first at al-Watan newspaper (Abha), and later at al-‘Aqīq Literary Magazine (Madina). He has worked as a Lecturer in Arabic literature and literary criticism at the Islamic University of Madina (2006-2008) and at the Umm al-Qura University in Mecca (2008-present). Abdulkarim has taught Modern Arabic Literature, Saudi Literature, Andalusi Literature, Female Writers, and Literary Theory. In 2012, the Umm al-Qura University granted him a full scholarship to obtain a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.
Abdulkarim received his B.A. (Hons) from King Khalid University (2003), and two M.S.s from the Umm al-Qura University (2009) and the University of Michigan (2015). His latest monograph Ṣirā‘ al-Jabr wa al-'ikhtīyār: muqārabah ta’wīlīyyah li al-ramz fī shi’r Hamzah Shaḥātah1908-1972 (Ammān, 2012), is an extended hermeneutic study of symbolism in modern Saudi poetry as represented by the oeuvre of Hamzah Shahatah.
His training at MES focused on Modern Arabic Literature and Translation Theory, with particular attention to the works of Khayr al-Dīn al-Tūnsī, Fāris al-Shidyāq, Frānsīs al-Marrāsh, Salim al-Bustānī, Sulaymān al-Bustānī, and Faraḥ Anṭun.
His dissertation explores the figures of hope in the utopian thought and fiction of the Nahda. Utilizing the hermeneutic approach of Ernest Bloch, he looks closely at the political and social utopias of the Nahda to underscore (1) the dialectics of the ideological and the utopian in the projects of constitutional government, (2) the dialectics of freedom and order in the social utopias, and (3) the methodological utopia in the darwinist socialism. Concurrently, he is also working on a book-length study of the philological and humanist conceptions and practices in the works of Faraḥ Anṭun, Sulaymān al-Bustānī, and Ṭaha Hussain.
