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Biography
I am an Assistant/ Associate Professor in Modern English Literature in the English Department, College of Languages, Sulaimani University, Iraqi Kurdistan where I have worked from 2010. I have lectured on BA, MA and PhD modules in a wide range of subjects (the novel, drama and literary theory) and I have also supervised BA Hons and MA dissertations. I hold a BA in English Language and Literature (Sulaimani University - 2004), an MA in National and International Literatures in English (Merit) (University of London - 2009), a Ph.D. in Modern English Literature (Brunel University London - 2016), and a PGCHE (University of Falmouth - 2021) in University Teaching. My Ph.D. at Brunel University – London, was on modernist British women writers and the philosophy of Henri Bergson and William James. Sections of my Ph.D. have been already published in various journals and more will follow.
I have also taught at Al-Zahra College for Women, Oman (where I was Head of Department), Komar University of Science and Technology, University of Human Development and Cihan University,
My Ph.D. research sought to explore and scrutinize the influence of William James and Henri Bergson on the role of selected British modern female writers of the early decades of twentieth century mainly from 1918 – 1929. The research provides a new interpretation of the way texts are framed and formed, writers' and characters’ inner perception of the outside world, and how the identity of women’s writing practice altered fluidly and aesthetically.
As well as my original focus on Anglo-American and transnational modernism, my research interests now include contemporary British and American fiction, as well as literature in English about Kurdistan, whether by Kurds or by non-Kurds. I also like films and graphic novels, so don’t be surprised to hear me discuss these. Please see my publications list for examples. I am listed on: ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5885-5832; Academia Edu: https://sulaimaniu.academia.edu/AlanAliSaeed; Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alan-Ali-Saeed and Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=_O42e7QAAAAJ
E-mails: alan.asaeed@univsul.edu.iq alan.ali.saeed@gmail.com
Research Philosophy
I believe strongly in the value of research and in keeping up to date about scholarship in my field within literary studies. I read widely and follow the latest critical developments in Britain, Europe, and the USA. I maintain that research does not finish after your Ph.D. but continues through the whole of your academic career. I also think that good research underpins excellent teaching. In my view, research occurs in many forms: book reviews, interviews; cultural journalism; book chapters as well as traditional academic articles. I also believe that Kurdish researchers should publish internationally as well as locally and engage with the public about our work. I feel knowledge transfer to the wider community is an integral part of effective research. I have been a peer reviewer for various academic journals, as well as an external examiner for MA theses, which I consider important parts of my role and am enthusiastic to do more. I am always keen to hear what students and colleagues think of my research, so please feel free to come and discuss it with me or else drop in to discuss your own research at whatever level that might be.
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one”. George R.R. Martin
“In the end, we'll all become stories.” Margaret Attwood
"Stories are the most important thing in the world. Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all". Philip Pullman
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” Albert Camus
‘The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” Jane Austen
“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances, we are by ourselves. […] We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.” Aldous Huxley from The Doors of Perception
“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.” J.D. Salinger from Catcher in the Rye.
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