Suzanne Conklin Akbari is a
medievalist, recognised for her global and comparative approach to medieval literary history. She was a
Professor in English and Medieval Studies at the
University of Toronto from 1995 until 2019, when she joined the
Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton.
Biography
Akbari earned her B.A. from
Johns Hopkins University in 1984. At
Columbia University, she earned an M.A. in English in 1989, an M. Phil. in English and Comparative Literature in 1991, and a Ph.D. in English and Comparative literature in 1995.
She began teaching at the University of Toronto in 1995, where she served as a Professor in the Department of English, as well as the Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies from 2013 to 2019.
In July 2019, Akbari left the University of Toronto to join the
Institute for Advanced Study.
Akbari's first monograph, ''Seeing Through the Veil'' (2004), ties medieval use of
allegory
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...
to the medieval debate about whether
visual perception occurs through
extramission or
intromission.
Her second monograph, ''Idols in the East'' (2009), presents a prehistory of
orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
in which Western Christian medieval writing associated Islam with
idolatry
Idolatry is the worship of a cult image or "idol" as though it were God. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, the Baháʼí Faith, and Islam) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the A ...
.
Later work includes research as a co-Principal Investigator for an
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, "The Book and the Silk Roads," begun in 2019 to study medieval transmission of book technologies along the
Silk Road
The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
trade routes between China and Europe.
In 2013, Akbari was an organizer for the grassroots group "Keep Back Campus Green," which sought to block the development of an artificial turf athletic field behind the University of Toronto's
University College buildings, arguing that the
Back Campus Fields ought to be protected as a heritage site. They were unsuccessful.
Akbari co-hosts a literary podcast, ''The Spouter-Inn'', with Chris Piuma, which was nominated in the Outstanding Arts Series of the 2020 Canadian Podcast Awards. Begun in 2019, the podcast consists of unscripted conversations about "great" literature. With Filiz Çakır Phillip, she co-curated the exhibition 'Hidden Stories: Books Along the Silk Roads', which ran at the
Aga Khan Museum
The Aga Khan Museum (french: Musée Aga Khan) is a museum of Islamic art, Iranian (Persian) art and Muslim culture located at 77 Wynford Drive in the North York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is dedicated to Islamic art and obj ...
from October 2021 to February 2022.
Books
* ''Seeing Through the Veil: Optical Theory and Medieval Allegory'', University of Toronto Press, 2004.
* Co-editor, ''Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West'', with Amilcare Iannucci, University of Toronto Press, 2008.
* '' Idols in the East: Representations of Islam and the Orient, 1100-1450'', Cornell University Press, 2009.
* Co-editor, ''A Sea of Languages: Rethinking the Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History'', with Karla Mallette, University of Toronto Press, 2013.
*Co-editor, ''The Ends of the Body'', with Jill Ross, University of Toronto Press, 2013.
*Editor, ''How We Write: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blank Page'', Punctum Books, 2015.
*Co-editor, ''How We Read: Tales, Fury, Nothing, Sound'', with Kaitlin Heller, Punctum Books, 2019.
*Co-editor, ''Oxford Handbook of Chaucer'', with James Simpson, Oxford University Press, 2020.
*Co-editor, ''Norton Anthology of World Literature''.
References
External links
Suzanne Conklin Akbari's personal website*Talk: 'European Representations of Islam in the Era of Crusade', 15 December 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Es_iqOpIgw
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Medievalists
Literary scholars
Comparative literature academics
Institute for Advanced Study faculty
21st-century historians
Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Academic staff of the University of Toronto
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Women medievalists