Professor Fuad Sha’ban
Vice President, Yarmouk Private University, Syria; Professor of Literature and Translation, Petra University, Jordan.
Department of English at the University of Petra in Amman, Jordan. He recently served as Dean of Arts & Sciences at the University of Petra (2004-2009). In addition, he was Professor at the University of Damascus; Associate Professor at Riyadh University; Visiting Professor at James Madison University; Distinguished Research Visiting Fellow in Islamic and Arabian Development Studies at Duke University; Senior Visiting Professor at Duke University; Visiting Lecturer at Qatar University; Assistant Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, UAE University; and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, UAE University.
Prof. Sha’ban received his Ph.D. in English and Renaissance and American Literature from Duke University in 1965. He earned his M.A. in English from Duke University in 1961 and his B.A. in English from Damascus University in 1958. His areas of specialization and research are English Language and Literature: 19th Century Renaissance American Literature; Translation; and American Orientalism.
An eminent scholar, Prof. Sha’ban currently devotes his energies and experience toward addressing Western—mainly American—readers and audiences, explaining and analyzing our common values and historical experiences, the risks of excluding one another from our common humanity and the dangers of extremism that plague both East and West.
His books include: For Zion’s Sake: The Judeo-Christian Tradition in American Culture (Pluto 2005); and Islam and Arabs in Early American Thought: The Roots of Orientalism in America (Acorn 1991); and Arabic translations of Isaiah Berlin’s The Age of Enlightenment: The 18th Century Philosophers (1978); Alfred Lillienthal’s The Zionist Connection: What Price Peace? (1978); and History of Western Civilization (1985).
Prof. Sha’ban has lectured at a number of American universities about the Arab World, Islam, and American Literature and Studies at Arab Universities. These lectures covered universities in North Carolina, Tennessee, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Illinois, Wisconsin, and California. Some of these lectures were in the context of the IVP (International Visiting Program, 1976), during which Prof. Sha’ban toured nine states and participated in the 100th Independence Anniversary American Studies Association Conference. He addressed the Conference on his experience as a professor of American Literature. Other lectures were given in an outreach program from Duke University during his sabbatical as Visiting Professor there.
He was invited as one of two foreign Deans of Arts to the 1994 Association of U. S. Deans of Arts and Sciences Conference in Portland, Oregon. In addition, he has lectured at universities throughout the Arab and Muslim world, including Tishreen University, Latakia, Syria; Tunis University, Tunisia; Al-Hashimia University, Jordan; the Malaysian University of Sciences; and the University of Singapore, Diplomatic Institute.
Prof. Sha’ban holds memberships in: UAE Ministry of Higher Education Committee of Accreditation of Private Universities; Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation; The Arab Encyclopedia Commission, of which he is Chairman of the Board of Directors; the Jordanian Translators Association; The Gateway Trust; and the Association of Professors of English and Translation at Arab Universities. He is on the Committee for the Establishment of the Higher Studies Program, and The Library Committee, both at Damascus University, Faculty of Letters.
He has won numerous awards, including The Atlas Group Translation Award for Distinguished Contributions to Scholarship (Amman, Jordan); The Zarqa University Award for most outstanding book published during the past three years on the Arab-Zionist Conflict (Amman, Jordan), for his For Zion’s Sake; and a Distinguished Professor Contract by the UAE University.