Rebecca Johnson was an International Dissertation Research Fellow (IDRF) in 2007. She teaches courses in Middle Eastern literary and cultural studies, with a special focus on modern Arabic literature. Her research examines the history and theory of the novel in Arabic and English, the literature of the nineteenth-century period known as the Nahda, and literary orientalism and occidentalism. Her current book project considers the intertwined early histories of Arabic and English novels, using translation as a lens through which to understand the form and function of the genre. Johnson has published translations of Arabic literature, including a co-translation of Sinan Antoon’s I’jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody (City Lights Books, 2007).