Saad Abdulrahman Albazei is a Saudi intellectual who is known for his critiques of Arabic culture and comparative studies that map the East-West cultural and literary relations.
Life
Albazei was born in Saudi Arabia in 1953. He completed his university education in Riyadh and earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University, in the USA in 1983. His dissertation dealt with "literary Orientalism" in Western literatures. He is currently a member of the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia,. Until recently, he was professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Dept. of English, King Saud University, Riyadh. His former capacities include: editor-in-chief of The Global Arabic Encyclopedia, and editor-in-chief of the Riyadh Daily, an English-speaking newspaper. Dr. Albazei also worked as president of the Riyadh Literary Club, a major cultural institution in the Saudi Capital from 2006 to 2010. He has since then joined the Shura Council having retired from his post as professor of English and comparative literature at King Saud University.
Works
He has published widely on Arabic literature, including several volumes of literary criticism and analysis. His book Languages of Poetry: Poems and Readings won the Saudi Ministry of Culture's Book of the Year Prize in 2011. He also edited the 30-volume Global Arabic Encyclopedia. He chaired the judging panel for the 2014 Arabic Booker Prize. His publications in English include:
"Minority Concerns: Female Scholars at the Cultural Intersection," Neither East Nor West: Postcolonial Essays on Literature, Culture and Religion,.
"Enlightened Tensions: Jewish Haskalah and Arab-Muslim Nahda,".
Forthcoming: Cultural Encounters: Essays on Literature and Culture. Over the years, Prof. Albazei has lectured and participated in conferences in several countries including: USA, Japan, Poland, Germany, UK, France, Spain, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia. Most recently he addressed the UNESCO conference on languages in Paris, March, 2009. Prof. Albazei publishes articles in Saudi newspapers as well as academic articles in various periodicals. His English publications have appeared in several journals and books in Arab countries, Germany, Sweden, and the USA. His publications in Arabic include:
Thaqafat Assahra, 1991.
Dalil Annakid Aladabi, 2002.
Shurufat lialru'yah, 2004.
Almukawin Alyahudi fi Alhadharah Algharbiyyah, 2007.
Alikhtilaf Aththaqafi wa Thaqafat Alikhtilaf, 2008.
