Aria Fani (he/him/his)

Aria’s classroom is a space of laughter and reflection, where students embrace the sociability of humanistic education to cultivate genuine hope (with minimal reliance on edibles outside of class). He honors the loving memory of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, whose courage and moral clarity profoundly transformed the UW community. Aria has helped establish a lecture series at the Middle East Center to carry forward her name and memory—for Ayşenur no se murió, sino se multiplicó.

Aria's research and teaching focus on modern Persian literature and translation studies. His first book, Reading across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism, the winner of the ACLA’s 2025 René Wellek Prize for the Best Monograph in Comparative Literature, was published by the University of Texas Press in 2024. The book details the dynamic and interconnected ways Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through new ideas about literature (adabiyāt). Reading across Borders is available in both Iran (through a Persian translation published by Shirazeh Press) and India (Sanctum Books, New Delhi).

Aria is also a (very timid) practitioner of literary translation. Shape of Extinction, his co-translations of the modernist poet Bijan Jalali (d. 1999), done with Adeeba Shahid Talukder, has been published by the Toronto-based independent publisher, Asemana Books (May 2025). In AY 2025-26, Aria will direct the Middle East Center at JSIS. He will also continue co-convening the Translation Studies Hub with the objective of establishing a minor and an advanced certificate in translation studies at the University of Washington. 

Since 2017, Aria has been engaging in social advocacy for non-citizen Americans, particularly Central American asylum seekers, which richly nourishes both his teaching and research. Outside of his areas of research, he enjoys reading about Latin America through its own literary and journalistic voices. 

Teaching (2025/26):

• Summer '25: Roads to Mecca: Muslim Pilgrimage Writings (syllabus)
• Autumn '25: Media Persian (syllabus)
• Winter '26: seminar on Orientalism (syllabus)
• Spring '26: The Epic Tradition in Iran (syllabus) and seminar on Translation Studies (syllabus forthcoming)