AROUND THE QUADS
In Memoriam

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Magda al-Nowaihi, associate professor of Arabic Literature, passed away on June 4 after a seven-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was 44. Al-Nowaihi was a dedicated member of the Columbia faculty and maintained close ties with students and colleagues, even while on leave this past spring, using the phone,
e-mail and teleconferencing to write letters of recommendation and make thesis corrections.

Al-Nowaihi changed the face of the Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) department and garnered one of the top spots in the final round of nominations for a 2002 Presidential Teaching Award. Her contributions to the department include the reorganization and streamlining of the three-year Arabic language sequence and the transformation of the once-insular department due to collaborating with other departments to bring guest lecturers to students. Al-Nowaihi introduced gender studies to the department and taught the undergraduate course “Gender Issues in Middle Eastern Studies.” She taught graduate seminars that explored Arabic literature and undergraduate classes such as “Topics in Asian Civilization: The Middle East and India” and “Negotiating Identity in Modern Arabic Literature.”

Al-Nowaihi’s research interests spanned classical and modern Arabic poetry and prose, and her command of classical and modern genres was exceptional in a field where most people specialize. She published various essays, most recently “Resisting Silence in Arab Women’s Autobiographies” (IJMES, 2001).

At the time of her death, Al-Nowaihi was working on two book-length projects — one on Abbassid poet Ibn al-Rumi (Oneworld Publications, Oxford, forthcoming 2003) and the second on the Arabic elegy, tentatively titled Survival Zones: Transforming Loss in the Classical Arabic Elegy.

Robert Vitals, assistant professor of political science and director of the Middle East Center at Penn, called Al-Nowaihi “the keenest voice in Arab literary criticism in the United States today” in the May 2000 issue of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies News. Commented MEALAC Professor George Saliba, “She was one of the very few people who could move comfortably throughout the Arabic library. She was an irreplaceable asset.” Saliba remembered Al-Nowaihi delivering hour-and-a-half lectures without notes and being able to give direct, but constructive criticism about her students’ theses.

A native of Egypt, Al-Nowaihi was educated at the American University in Cairo. She earned her doctorate with distinction from Harvard in 1988, and her thesis on Andalusian poet Ibn Khafajah was published as a book five years later. After teaching at Princeton, she was hired by Columbia as an associate professor in 1995. Al-Nowaihi is survived by her husband, Fernand Cohen, and their children, Nadeem and Nadia.