MICHAEL A SELLS

The University of Chicago . . . . . 1978-1982 . . . .Ph.D. 1982
Center for Arabic Studies Abroad, Cairo, Egypt. . . 1977-1978
The University of Chicago . . . . . 1976-1977 . . . . M.A. 1977
Gonzaga University. . . . . . . . . . 1967-1971 . . . . A.B. 1971 (Florence Italy Program, 69-70)

POSITIONS HELD

• 5/95-- -- -- Haverford College, Professor of Religion
  and Emily Judson Baugh and John Marshall Gest Professor of Comparative Religions.
• (7/97-7/98 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, in residence)
• 7/92--6/96 Haverford College, Chairperson, Dept. of Religion.
• 5/90--5/95 Haverford College, Associate Professor, Department of Religion.
• 8/84 --5/90 Haverford College, Assistant Professor, Department of Religion
• 8/82-- 8/84 Stanford University, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow.
• 8/72--6/74 Peace Corps, Tunisia. Lycée de Medenine. Lycée de Foum Tatahouine.

PUBLICATIONS, BOOKS

Stations of Desire: Love Odes of Ibn `Arabi and New Poems. Original poems by Michael Sells and translations of love qasidas from Ibn `Arabi's Interpreter of Desires (Turjuman al-Ashwaq). Jerusalem: Ibis Press, 2000. Third Printing, 2001.

Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations. White Cloud Press, 1999. Second Edition, 2001. Renderings of the hymnic suras, with an introduction, a facing commentary on each Sura, essays on sound and meaning in Qur'anic language, sound charts for use with Qur'anic recitation, and an annotated glossary and a CD with examples of Qur'anic recitation.

Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, Al-Andalus. Co-editor, with Maria Rosa Menocal and Raymond Scheindlin, and contributor. The volume includes 24 essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia. University of California Press, 1996. An examination of the use of religious mythology to motivate and justify genocide against Bosnian Muslims from 1992-1995. 1997 American Academy Religion Award for Excellence in Historical Studies. Second Edition with a Preface on Kosovo and BiH. University of California Press, 1998.

Early Islamic Mysticism. Paulist Press Classics of Western Spirituality Series, 1996. Introductions and translations of the Qur'an, Mi`raj Accounts, Arabic Poetry, Tustari, Ja`far as-Sadiq, Muhasibi, Junayd, Hallaj, Rabi`a, Bistami, Sarraj, Qushayri, and Niffari, with an Introduction to Islamic mysticism. Second Printing 1998.

Mystical Languages of Unsaying. University of Chicago Press, 1994. A philosophical and literary study of apophatic language in Plotinus, Eriugena, Ibn `Arabi, Eckhart, and Marguerite Porete. With original translations from the Greek, Arabic, Latin, medieval French, and medieval German. 1995 American Academy of Religion First Book Prize (honorable mention).

Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes. Wesleyan University Press, 1989. Second Printing, 1996. Original Translations, and Critical Commentary on early Arabic odes by `Alqama, Shanfara, Labid, `Antara, Al-A`sha and Dhu al-Rumma, with a General Introduction. Major selections appear in the Harper-Collins World Reader and The Norton Anthology of World Poetry.

BOOK SECTIONS

"Bewildered Tongue: The Semantics of Mystical Union in Islam" and "Response," in Bernard McGinn and Moshe Idel, ed., Mystical Union and Monotheistic Religions: an Ecumenical Dialogue, New York: MacMillan, 1989. This volume includes studies by McGinn (Christian Mysticism), Idel (Jewish Mysticism), Sells (Islamic Mysticism), and D. Merkur (Psychological Approaches), with a response by each to the other essays. Second Edition, Mystical Union in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Continuum, 1996).

• "The Infinity of Desire: Love, Mystical Union, and Ethics in Sufism," in William Barnard and Jeffrey Kripal, eds., Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism (New York: Seven Bridges, 2002): 184-229.
• "Islam in Serbian Religious Mythology and Its Consequences," in Maya Shatzmiller, ed., Islam and Bosnia (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002), in press.
• "Translating Arabic Literature," in Wolfhart Heinrichs, editor, Mundus Arabicus, Special Issue, forthcoming.
• "Irremediable Ecstasy, Modes of the Lyric in Etel Adnan's The Spring Flowers Own & Manifestations of the Voyage," in The Work of Etel Adnan, edited by Lisa Suhayr Majaj (McFarland and Co., 2000), in press.
• The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy, co-edited with Emran Qureshi (New York: Columbia University Press, in press).
• "Penetrating the Harem: Orientalism and Genocide in Bosnia," in Emran Qureshi and Michael Sells, eds, The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy
• "The Wedding of Zein: Islam through the Modern Novel," in Brannon Wheeler, editor, Approaches to the Teaching of Islamic Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, in press).

• "Serbian Religious Mythology and the Genocide in Bosnia" in In God's Name: Genocide and Religion in the 20th Century, edited by Omer Bartov and Phyllis Mack (Berghahn Books, 2001), 180-205. 
• "The 'Work' of Love: Marguerite Porete, Nizam, and Ibn `Arabi" (Tres seguidores de la religion de l'amor: Nizam, Ibn `Arabi, y Marguerite Porete), translated into Spanish by Ana Iribas Rubin in Pablo Beneito, ed. Mujeres de Luz: Proceedings of the Congreso Internacional Sobre Mistica Femenina, Avila 29-31 Octubre, 1999 (Avila: Centro Internacional de Estudios Misticos, 2001): 137-157.
• Preface, Emil Homerin, editor and translator, `Umar Ibn al-Farid: Sufi Verse, Saintly Life (New York: Paulist Press Classics of Western Spirituality, 2001), pp. xi-svii.
• Michael A. Sells, Preface, Alexandre Kimenyi and Otis Scott, Anatomy of Genocide (Edwin Mellen, 2001).
• "Sound, Spirit, and Gender in Surat al-Qadr," anthologized in Andrew Rippin, ed., The Qur'an: Style and Contents (Variorum, Aldershot UK, 2001): 332-353.
• Stations of Desire: Love Elegies from Ibn `Arabi and New Poems (Jerusalem: Ibis Editions, 2001), 3rd Printing.
• Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations (Ashland: White Cloud Press, 2001), 2nd Edition.

• "Meister Eckhart and Ibn `Arabi on the Mysticism of Perpetual Transformation," Eckhart Review, no. 8 (Spring 2000):3-18.
• "A Literary Approach to the Hymnic Suras of the Qur'an: Spirit, Gender, and Aural Intertextuality" in Issa Boullata, editor, Literary Structures of Religions Meaning in the Qur'an (London: Curzon Press, 2000), pp. 3-25.
• "Vuk's Knife: Kosovo, the Serbian Golgotha, and the Radicalization of Serbian Society," William J. Buckley, ed., Kosovo: Contending Voices on Balkan Interventions (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), pp.133-141.
• Stations of Desire: Love Odes of Ibn `Arabi and New Poems ( Jerusalem: Ibis Press, 2000, second printing 2001).
• The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, Al-Andalus. Co-editor, with Maria Rosa Menocal and Raymond Scheindlin, and contributor. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
• "To al-Andalus Would She Return the Greeting: Ibn Zaydun's Nuniyya (Poem in N), Complete Translation," in the The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: The Literature of Al-Andalus, ed. Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 489-496.
• "Love," an essay on love poetry in Islamic Andalus, The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: The Literature of Al-Andalus, ed. Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp.126-158.

• "Balkan Islam and the Mythology of Kosovo," ISIM (International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World) Newsletter, no. 3, 1999
•  "The Wiles of Women and Performative Intertextuality: `A'isha, the Hadith of the Slander and the Sura of Yusuf," Journal of Arabic Literature 30.1 (Spring, 1999): 1-23. Co-Authored with Ashley Manjarrez Walker. R
• Approaching the Qur'an: The New Revelations, selections, translations, and commentaries by Michael Sells (Ashland: White Cloud Press, 1999, new printing 2000)
• "Sufism Toward the Year 1240 CE," in Mortimer Ostow, editor, Jewish Mystical Leadership in the Thirteenth Century (Jason Aronson Press, 1999).

• "Preface on Kosovo and BiH from 1995-1998," for the new, paperback edition of Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
• "Serbian Religious Nationalism, Christoslavism, and the Genocide in Bosnia, 1992-1995," in Paul Mojzes, editor, The Role of Religion in the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, (Atlanta: Scholar's Press, 1998): 196-207.
• Four Poems Translated from Ibn `Arabi's Tarjuman al-Ashwaq (Translation of Desires), Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn `Arabi Society 23 (1998): 53-57.
• "Heart-Secret, Intimacy, and Awe in Formative Sufism," The Shaping of An American islamic Discourse: A Memorial to Fazlur Rahman, ed. by Earle Waugh and Frederick Denny (Atlanta: Scholars Press, Studies on Religion and the Social Order, 1998): 165-188.

• "Longing, Belonging, and Pilgrimage in the Poetry of Ibn `Arabi," Ross Brann, editor, Languages of Power in Islamic Andalus CDL Press: Occasional publications of the Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Program of Jewish Studies, Cornell University, 1997: 178-96.
• "'Christ Killer' Mythology and the Tragedy in the Balkans," in Explorations: Rethinking Relationships Among Protestants, Christians and Jews 11.3 (1997):5.

•  The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1996).
• "Toward a Multidimensional Understanding of Islam: The Poetic Key," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 64.1 (1996): 145-66.
• Early Islamic Mysticism (New York: Paulist Press Classics of Western Spirituality, 1996).
• "Religion, History, and Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina," in Religion and Justice in the War over Bosnia, edited by G. Scott Davis (New York: Routledge, 1996): 22-43.
• "The Mu`allaqat," Harper-Collins Great Literature of the Eastern World, Edited by Ian McGreal (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), pp. 457-61.
• "Early Islamic Mysticism,"The Muslim Almanac, edited by Azim Nanji (Detroit: Gale Research, 1996), pp. 215-21.
• "Bewildered Tongue: The Semantics of Mystical Union in Islam" and "Response," in Bernard McGinn and Moshe Idel, ed., Mystical Union and Monotheistic Religions: an Ecumenical Dialogue, New York: MacMillan, 1989.

•  "At the Way Stations, Stay," Translation and Commentary on a Poem from Ibn `Arabi's "Interpreter of Desires," Journal of the Muhyiddin ibn `Arabi Society 18 (1995): 57-65.
• "Lacan and Bion: Psychoanalysis and the Mystical Language of Unsaying,"Theory and Psychology 5.2 (1995): 195-215. With Richard Webb. Reprinted in the Journal of Melanie Klein and Object Relations 15:2 (1997), W.R. Bion Centennial Issue (1897-1997): 243-64
• "Ibn al-`Arabi, Rabi`a al-Adawiyya, Al-Qushayri, Shahrastani," Harper-Collins Great Thinkers of the Eastern World, edited Ian McGreal (New York: HarperCollins, 1995): 435-38, 453-56, 461-64, 475-479.

•  "The Pseudo-Woman and the Meister: 'Unsaying' and Essentialism," in Bernard McGinn, editor, Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics (New York: Crossroad, 1994), pp. 114- 46.
• Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994).
• "Mysticism and Emanation in the Writings of Meister Eckhart,"Listening 29.3 (1994) 174-85.
• "Like the Arms of a Drowning Man: Simile and Symbol Worlds in the Naqa Sections of Bashama's Hajarta Umama," W. Heinrichs and G. Schoeler, eds., A Festschrift in Honor of Professor Ewald Wagner, Beiruter Studien (Beirut/Istanbul 1994) 2: 18-41.
• "Guises of the Ghul: Dissembling Simile and Semantic Overflow in the Early Arabic Nasib," in S. Stetkevych, editor, Reorientations, Studies in Arabic and Persian Poetry (Indiana University Press, 1994): 130-164.
• "Bosnia: Some Religious Dimensions of Genocide," Religious Studies News 9.2 (May 1994): 4-5. Reprinted in Common Era: Best Religion Writings of 1994, edited by Stephen Scholl (Ashland: White Cloud Press, 1995), 114-26.

•  "Along the Edge of Mirage: Translation and Interpretation of al-Mukhabbal as-Sa'di 's Mufaddaliya, Dhakarta Rababa," in Mustansir Mir, ed., The Literary Heritage of Classical Islam (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1993), pp. 119-36.
• "Sound and Meaning in Surat al-Qari'a,"Arabica 40.3 (1993): 403-430.
• "Towards A Poetic Translation of Fusus al-Hikam: The Adam Chapter," in S. Hirtenstein, ed., Muhyiddin Ibn `Arabi: A Commemorative Volume (Oxford: Element Books, 1993), pp. 124-39.
• "From a History of Mysticism to a Theology of Mysticism," Review Article on B. McGinn's The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. 1, Journal of Religion, 73.3 (July 1993): 390-399.

• "Sound, Spirit, and Gender in Surat al-Qadr," Journal of the American Oriental Society 111.2 (April-May, 1991): 239-259. Anthologized in Andrew Rippin, ed., The Qur'an: Style and Contents (Varioum: Aldershot UK, 2001): 332-353.
• "Ibn 'Arabi's Ala Ya Hamamati 1-Arakati wa 1-Bani [Gentle Now, Doves]," Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn `Arabi Society X (1991): 1-11. Anthologized in the Harper-Collins World Reader 1:1009-1011.

• "Banat Su'ad: Translation and Interpretive Introduction," Journal of Arabic Literature 21:2 (1990): 140-154.
• Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes by `Alqama, Shanfara, Labid, `Antara, Al-A`sha, and Dhu al-Rumma (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1989).
• "Bewildered Tongue: The Semantics of Mystical Union in Islam" and "Response," in Bernard McGinn and Moshe Idel, ed., Mystical Union and Monotheistic Religions: an Ecumenical Dialogue (New York: MacMillan, 1989): 87-124, 163-173, 219-230, 248-239.
• "Ibn `Arabi's Polished Mirror: Perspective Shift and Meaning Event," Studia Islamica 66 (1988): 121-149.
• "The Qasida and the West: Self-Reflective Stereotype and Critical Encounter," Al-`Arabiyya 20 (1987): 307-357.
• "The Semantics of Universality in the Writings of Ibn `Arabi,"Proceedings of the Muhyiaddin Ibn `Arabi Society, 1987.
• Majkl Sels, "Ibn Arabijeva: basta izmedu plamenova, Broj 7",Kulture Istoka: (Beograd: januar-mart, 1986), pp. 7-13. (Translation of "Ibn 'Arabi's Garden Among the Flames").
• "The Mu`allaqa of Tarafa," Journal of Arabic Literature, XVII (1986): 21-33.

•  "Apophasis in Plotinus: A Critical Approach," Harvard Theological Review, 78:1-2 (January-April, 1985), 47-67.
• "The Mu`allaqa of Labid, "Translation 13 (Oct/Nov., 1984).
• "Ibn `Arabi 's Garden Among the Flames: a Reevaluation"History of Religions, vol. 23, no. 4, 1984, pp. 287-315.
• "Translation and Interpretation: A New Version of Shanfara 's Lamiyya," Al-`Arabiyya, 16 (1983): 5-25. Essay and Translation.Winner of the 1982 AATA Translation Prize.
• "Dhu al-Rumma's 'To the Two Abodes of Mayya...',"Al-`Arabiyya 15 (1982): 52-65. Essay and Translation. Winner of the 1981 AATA Translation Prize.

• "Ascent (mi`raj)," Jane McAuliffe, General Editor, Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1999--), forthcoming.
• "Dhikr" (Memory, Remembrance), the Oxford Encylopedia of the Modern Islamic World.
• "Ibn al-`Arabi," Harper's Dictionary of Religion, p. 475.
• "Baraka," Harper's Dictionary of Religion, p. 104.

• Rusmir Mehmutcehajic, Bosnia the Good: Tolerance and Tradition (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2000), Slavic Review, forthcoming.
• Ger Duijzings, Religion and the Politics of Identity in Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), Religion, forthcoming.
• David Campbell, National Deconstruction : Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, forthcoming.
•  Jaroslav Stetkevych, Muhammad and the Golden Bough: Reconstructing Arabian Myth, MESA Bulletin 32 (1998) 60-61.
• Francine Friedman, The Bosnian Muslims: Denial of a Nation, Journal of Church and State 40.3 (Summer, 1998): 687-88.
• Shams C. Inati, Ibn Sina and Mysticism: Remarks and Admonitions, JR 78.1 (January,1988): 72-73.
• The Way of Abu Madyan: The Works of Abu Madyan Shu`ayb, Compiled and Translated by Vincent Cornell, JMIAS in press, 1997.
• Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed. The Legacy of Muslim Spain, JAOS 117.4 (1997): 757-59.
• Tone Bringa, We Are All Neighbors (videocassette) RSR, in press.
• Tone Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village, RSR, in press.
• Akhavan, Payam and Robert Howse, Yugoslavia: The Former and Future Journal of Peace and Justice, in press.
• H.T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans, MESA Bulletin 29.1 (1995): 112-13.
• Jaroslav Stetkevych, The Zephyrs of Najd: The Poetics of Nostalgia in the Classical Arabic Nasib, Al-Masaq 7 (1994): 305-309.
• Suzanne Stetkevych, The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual, IJMES 27.1 (1995): 138-40.
• William Chittick, Imam Zayn al-`Abidin, The Psalms of Islam: Al-Sahifat al-Sajjadiyya, RSR
• Moshe Idel, Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid, JQR 85.3-4 (January-April, 1995): 459-61.
• Jaroslav Stetkevych, Zephyrs of Nejd, Suzanne Stetkevych, Reorientations, Emil Homerin, From Arab Poet to Sufi Saint, Mustansir Mir, The Literary Heritage of Classical Islam, review essay, JMIAS XVII (1995): 96-99. (A review essay discussing the implications of these works for the study of the poetry of Ibn `Arabi).
• R.S. O'Fahey, Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition, MESA Bulletin 26 (1992): 71-72.
• Stephen Tabachnik, Explorations in Doughty's Arabia Deserta, JAOS 111.4 (1991): 791-92.
• Nasr, Dabashi, and Nasr, Expectation of the Millenium: Shi`ism in History, JR 71:2 (April 1991): 298-99.
• Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Spirituality: Foundations, JR 69:4 (Oct, 1990): 589-90.
• Eric Ormsby, Theodicy in Islam: the Dispute over al-Ghazali's 'Best of All Possible Worlds, HR 28:2 (1988): 185-86.
• Carl Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism, IJMES 19:2 (May, 1987).
• Ibn `Arabi, Journey to the Lord of Power, translated by Rabia Terri Harris, JNES 45:2 (April, 1986): 167-69.
• Tawfiq al-Hakim, Return of Consciousness, Horizons, Summer, 1985.
• Peter Awn, Satan's Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology, JR 65:1 (January, 1985).
• William Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, The Muslim World 75:2 (April, 1985).
• John Esposito's Voices of Resurgent Islam, MESA Bulletin 18:2 (Dec., 1984).
• Richard Martin, Islam, MESA Bulletin 17:2 (Dec., 1983).

Islamic Thought (Qur’an, Sufism, Philosophy, Literature). Arabic Language and Literature (Classical Qasida, Sufi Literature, Qur'an, Modern Arabic Literature). Mystical Thought and Literature (Greek, Islamic, Christian, Jewish). Comparative Religions. Bosnia-Herzegovina.

COURSES TAUGHT

• Introduction to Islam
• Islamic Literature and Civilization
• Islam and the West
• The Mid-East Love Lyric in Translation (Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu)
• Sacred Texts and Religious Traditions: Most years the focus of this course has been on Hinduism and Islam, although Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism have been covered in some years.
• Comparative Mysticism (Jewish, Christian, Islamic)
• Myth and Symbol
• Religions of the East (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism)
• The Arabian Ode
• Cultural Identity in Third World Literatures
• Arabic and Islamic Literature in Translation

LANGUAGES

Arabic (Classical, Modern Standard, Egyptian, Tunisian), French, Latin, Classical Greek, Italian, Spanish, German, some Hebrew, some Persian.

For part 2 of Michael Sells, Curriculum Vitae: curriculum vitae, part 2.