Roger Allen (University of Pennsylvania)
Submitted: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 11:32:55 -0400 (EDT)
Roger Allen
Professor of Arabic;
Director, Program in International Studies & Business
Dept. of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
847 Williams Hall
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305
USA
Phones: 215-898-6337 (Office)
dept. 215-898-7466 (Dept.)
215-898-2426 (Dept.)
215-898-6335 (Dept.)
Fax: 215-573-8960 (International Studies & Business)
Email: rallen@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
Roger Allen obtained the D. Phil. degree at Oxford University in 1968
with a dissertation on the early modern Egyptian prose writer, Muhammad
al- Muwaylihi (published by the State University of New York Press in 1974
and republished in a second edition as A Period of Time, Reading, England:
Garnet Press, 1992). Since emigrating to the United States in 1968 he has
specialized in two areas: Arabic Literature, with particular reference to
narrative and drama; and Arabic language pedagogy. Besides a major study
on the Arabic Novel (Syracuse University Press, 1982; 2nd enlarged
edition, 1994)-- including studies of such writers as MAHFUZ, MUNIF,
SALIH, Habibi, al-Shaykh, Kanafani, al-Ghitani, and al-KHARRAT--and an
anthology of critical writings, Modern Arabic Literature, Library of
Literary Criticism Series (New York: Ungar Publishing Company, 1985), he
has published over thirty articles on Arabic literature. He has produced
a number of translations of modern Arabic narrative, including Najib
Mahfuz's Mirrors (1977) and Autumn Quail (1985), Jabra Ibrahim Jabra's The
Ship (1985, with Adnan Haydar), `Abd al- rahman Munif's Endings (1988),
and collections of short stories by Najib Mahfuz and Yusuf Idris. As
guest-editor of many of journals he has also encouraged the publication of
a large number of other translations. He has been an editor of the
JOURNAL OF ARABIC LITERATURE and currently serves on the Administrative
Board of The Project for the Translation of Arabic (PROTA, directed by Dr.
Salma Khadra' al-Jayyusi) and is a member of the editorial boards of
Al-`Arabiyya (Journal of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic),
and of World Literature Today.
Roger Allen is a certified Arabic proficiency tester for the American
Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and in 1986 was
asked to serve as ACTFL's national Trainer of Testers. Since then he has
led a large number of workshops on language teaching and learning,
involving materials preparation, classroom instruction, and testing.
Along with Adel Allouche he has completed a proficiency-based textbook for
standard Arabic using computer- assisted instructional methods, Let's
Learn Arabic [1988].
He currently serves as Professor of Arabic Language and Literature
in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania. He also chairs the Language Advisory
Committee of the School of Arts and Sciences and is Co-Director of
the Program in International Studies and Business [Wharton and
School of Arts & Sciences). He is organist and choirmaster of St.
Mary's Episcopal Church, Hamilton Village, Philadelphia.
Key Words: Arabic, literature, fiction, pedagogy, proficiency, drama,
Egypt, Arab World, oral interview, testing, Najib Mahfuz, Yusuf Idris,
Munif, Jabra