
Welcome to my site.
Thank you for visiting my webpage! I am Yazid Haroun, an academic and literary writer with a passion for cross-cultural translation, sociology of translation, and intersectionality. Here, you can find updates on my latest research publications, academic and novel reviews, and public lectures. Please feel free to share links and engage with my posts. I would be delighted to answer any questions or queries you may have. Happy browsing!
Latest Posts
The Vernacular Qur’an by Travis Zadeh
Travis Zadeh’s ambitious study of Persian exegesis and translations of the Qur’an appeared in 2012. It is an ambitious work that traces the “socio-linguistic process of vernacularisation as it relates particularly to the Qur’an” (Zadeh 2012, xviii). A more robust description would be something like that: a socio-linguistic study of the intellectual, institutional, and codicological movement…
Mapping Frontiers by Travis Zadeh
Mapping Frontiers examines the early Abbasid’s translation movement and the many viewpoints on translation prevalent at the time, particularly as it related to the feasibility of translating the Qur’an. It studies a famous passage from Ibn Kurradadhbih’s Kitab al-Maslik wa-l-mamalik (Book of Routes and Realms), and its reception and use over time (albeit it cannot be used as…
Religion and the Specter of the West by Arvind Mandair
During colonial India, translation played a key role in changing the practices of Indians, their society and languages. Colonisers assumed that meanings are comparable and that identities are fixed, not fluid. Their goal was to standardise India’s languages, laws, and customs with all their hybridity and complexity in the image of the colonised themselves—the spectre…
List of the most recent academic book reviews
The Vernacular Qur’an by Travis Zadeh (2012)
Mapping Frontiers Across Medieval Islam by Travis Zadeh (2011)
Religion and the Specter of the West by Arvind-pal Mandair (2009)
Siting Translation by Tejaswini Niranjana (1992)
The Invention of World Religions by Tomoko Masuzawa (2005)
Education
PhD in Translation Studies
MA in Arabic/English Translation
BA in Linguistics
