Abdul-Nabi Isstaif

Abdul-Nabi Isstaif (Arabic: عبد النبي اصطيف ‎, romanized: ‘Abd al-Nabī Iṣṣṭayf; born 1952) is a professor of Comparative Literature, Critical Theory and Translation at Damascus University.

Twice Vice-Dean for Academic Affairs, and a former Chairman of Arabic Department at the University of Damascus, Isstaif founded the Syrian General Organization of Books and was its first General Director (2006-8). He was also a member of the founding team which established the Higher Institute for Interpreting and Translation at the University of Damascus. A former Editor in Chief of the Damascus University Journal for Literatures and Humanities, Isstaif is also a consultant editor of several Arabic and English scholarly journals in both the Arab World (Al-Mutarjim and Semiotique, Universite d'Oran, Algrie) and the United Kingdom (Journal of Islamic Studies, Oxford, and Journal of Islamic Jerusalem Studies, Dundee). Representing Syria (particularly the University of Damascus) in many regional, pan-Arab and International conferences, meetings and cultural weeks, Isstaif has participated in tens of academic, cultural and literary conferences and symposia all over the Arab World and beyond, and has lectured widely in many Arab, Eastern and Western Universities on Arabic literature relations with the literatures of the World, Arabic culture, Orientalism and Edward Said, and on World Civilizations and their Interrelations.

Abdul-Nabi Isstaif was educated at the University of Damascus and St. Antony's College, University of Oxford where he received his D.Phil. in comparative criticism in 1983. He is a specialist in modern Arabic literature and criticism with special reference to Western influences. Isstaif has taught at the University of Oxford (U.K), Sanaa University (Yemen), King Saud University (Saudi Arabia), New College of the University of South Florida and Roger Williams University (U.S.A.), University of Jaumi I (Spain), Deakin University (Australia), Al-Baath University (Homs, Syria) as well as the Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Higher Institute of Technology and Applied Sciences and the Higher Institute of Interpreting and Translation in Syria. He is also interested in Anglo-American Orientalism and in the Euro-Arab cultural relations in medieval and modern times, publishing several books in Arabic, and over 900 articles, papers, reviews and translations in both Arabic and English in more than 90 periodicals in Syria, the Arab World, Europe and the United States of America.