Renée Ragin Randall
Assistant Professor, LSA Collegiate Fellow (2020-2022)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
About
I am an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I specialize in modern and contemporary literature in Arabic, English, French, and Spanish, focusing on trauma and memory, narrative theory, and world literature.
My research focuses on the practice of narrating political violence. How do narratives give rise to violence? How is violence represented on the page? How do aspects of society, the nature of institutions, and other material realities shape those narratives? I address these questions through historically-informed analyses of literary fiction, film, theater and other forms of visual art.
I have published on this and related topics in the context of Lebanon, Iraq, Cambodia, and Indonesia–in addition to previous and ongoing research on Latin American and Caribbean contexts.
At the moment, I am working on a scholarly monograph tentatively titled Laying Claim: Narrative and Atrocity during Lebanon’s Civil Wars. I am also working on a project about the circulation of literary fiction between Latin America/the Caribbean and North Africa/the Middle East from the Cold War to the present day.
A New York City native, I spent 4 years as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. and Saudi Arabia before returning to academia. I received my PhD from Duke University’s Program in Literature in 2020.
Get in touch
reneeran@umich.edu
Renée Ragin Randall 