Academic staff at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics

Modern Indonesian cinema and literature; queer studies and sexuality in Indonesia; representation of genders and sexuality in Southeast Asian film and literatures; representation of HIV in Indonesian culture

Qur’an, Hadith, Tafsir; Islam in society; classical and modern Arabic literature

Modern Thai Cultural Studies, Cinema and Literature; gender studies with reference to Thailand; literary criticism and South East Asian Literatures in a comparative context; Western film set in South East Asia

Early Islamic History from 600 to1100, Arabic historiography, Islamic archaeology, historical geography of the Middle East, castle building in the Middle East, history of al-Andalus (Muslim Spain and Portugal)

Bantu languages and linguistics; syntax; semantics; pragmatics; historical linguistics; language and society in Eastern and Southern Africa

Classical and modern Arabic literature and culture, with emphasis on narrative and storytelling, comparative narratology and critical theory, and gendered thinking and discourse.

Professor Nana Sato-Rossberg is the Chair of the Centre for Translation Studies. Her research interests include history of translation studies in Japan, intergeneric translations (manga to film), translation of oral narratives or orality, cultural translation, and the relationship between translation and power.

Sociolinguistics, language policy and planning, endangered languages, revitalisation methods, multilingualism, language documentation, language and development.  British Isles, Channel Islands/Guernesiais,  Oceania (language policies and attitudes), Thailand (minority language support and revitalisation).

Distinguished Research Professor Rebecca Gould brings research on comparative poetics beyond Europe to SOAS

Islamic Law, Hanbali Law

Modern Indonesian cinema and literature; queer studies and sexuality in Indonesia; representation of genders and sexuality in Southeast Asian film and literatures; representation of HIV in Indonesian culture

Social and cultural history of modern Palestine/Israel; material, visual and urban culture; history of textuality; race and antisemitism; migration and settler colonialism in Jewish history

Early Anatolian Turkish; Ottoman language and literature; Ottoman history; Turkish-Greek relations; modern Turkish culture

Persian language and literature. Organiser of SOAS-Cambridge Undergraduate workshops

Swahili studies, African Studies, Translation Theory and Practice, Indian Ocean Networks

Senior Lecturer in Arabic Popular Literature and Culture.  

Modern Vietnamese cultural studies (literature, film, gender); Vietnamese social and cultural history (the Vietnam War; art and politics); the sociology of contemporary Vietnamese literature; the Vietnamese diaspora

Dr Mulaika Hijjas

Semantics, pragmatics, Chinese linguistics

Historical linguistics, Arabic linguistics, Maltese linguistics, Arabic dialectology, language contact, linguistic variation, contact-induced language change, Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin, Dynamic Syntax, Relevance Theory, Arabic language, Afro-Asiatic languages, English

Indonesian language

Arabic language teaching

The early Arabic linguistic tradition; classical Islamic theology and jurisprudence

Urdu and Hindi language

MA Iranian Studies, Critical Perspective on Palestine Studies, Re-mapping Area Studies, Decolonising Otherness.

Cultural, economic and political dynamics underpinning China's relations with the Middle East, with a special emphasis on nations such as Iran and the Arab States in West Asia.

Modern Turkish Literature; Comparative Literature; World Literature; the Novel; Turkish Language and Culture

Descriptive and Theoretical Linguistics, Typology, Berber, Sociolinguistics

Arabic language

Arabic language and translation

Syntax, syntax-semantics interface, formal semantics, lexical semantics, constraint-based frameworks (LFG and HPSG), lexical aspect, negation, argument structure, Romance languages, Greek, South-Asian languages

Arabic language

Translation as practice; Translation Pedagogy; Agency; Sociology of translation; Translator’s style and voice; Translation in the media; Discourse analysis; Translation discourse in modern China; Translation Theory; Translation and literary criticism.

African Studies

Amharic Language

Persian language

South Asian literature and film, translation, postcolonial theory, gender and sexuality studies

Sanskrit Language; Sanskrit literature, poetics and aesthetic theory, pre-modern South Asian histories and cultures.

Arabic language, translation

Hebrew language

Arabic language

African diasporas in London, Yoruba Language, Swahili language, popular culture (film, music, literature etc.) in Swahili and Yoruba Languages.

Turkish language

Modern South Asian history, literature and culture; Bengali Language; South Asian Music with a focus on Bengali Music, especially Rabindrasangeet and Folk Music of Bengal

Classical Arabic literature, Popular literature, Comparative literature

Hindi language.

Zulu Language

Somali language

Emeritus Professor of Sanskrit, University of London; Vedic religion, Classical Sanskrit literature, Middle Indian languages and cultures.

Burmese language

African Literary and Cultural Studies; African Philosophy and Post/Decolonial Theory; Environmental Philosophy and Sustainability

Ret'sepile Makamane is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow whose focus is on African literature aesthetics in Sesotho novels.

Philippine Post-colonial and Comparative Literature Studies; British Occupation of Manila; Philippine languages and linguistics; Ethnography of Communication; Writing systems; Southeast Asian Studies; Gender and Migration..

Typology, morpho-syntax, language documentation and description, historical linguistics, Lexical-Functional grammar, computer-aided linguistic analysis, Austronesian languages, Australian Aboriginal languages

Hindi Cinema; Indian popular culture; Indian film; Hinduism; new middle classes; Mumbai/Bombay

Nepali literature; the Nepali media; Nepali politics; Bhutanese refugees.

General descriptive linguistics, Arabic, Persian, North American Indian languages, dialects and oral literature of the Arabian Peninsula - in particular the dialects of the Arabian bedouin, covering the dialects of the Al Dhafir, Mutair, Al Murrah and Rwalah tribes; Lakota (Siouan), Cree (Algonquian)

Traditional Malay philology; the contemporary literatures, cultures and societies of the Malay-speaking world; Malay society; Malay culture; Malay history; Malay politics; Malay religion

Syntax, morphology, information structure, typology, lexicalist theories of grammar, Construction Grammar, documentation of endangered languages, Palaeosiberian linguistics, Uralic languages, Altaic languages, Tundra Nenets (northwestern Siberia)

Hindi Literature; North Indian literary cultures; Hindi; Urdu.

Applied linguistics and sociolinguistics

Social psychology of language and intergroup relations, intercultural communication, identity (minority and majority), bi-multilingualism, multiculturalism, language attitudes and motivations

Punjabi and Urdu languages and literatures; regional languages of Pakistan and North-West India; Sufism and Islam in South Asia; Sikhism and its scriptures; comparative literature of the Islamic world.

Iranian and Central Asian philology; Christian and Manichaean texts from Central Asia.

Stefan Sperl's research area includes classical and modern Arabic literature, comparative literature, Qur’an and Hadith studies, Islamic art, Sufism and Neoplatonism, and refugee and exile studies.

English in Africa, Yoruba, Nigerian Pidgin, linguistics and language in Africa

Alia Amir is a Research Associate at SOAS University of London as well as an Associate Professor in English Linguistics at Halmstad University.

Classical Arabic literature, Popular literature, Comparative literature

Armenian History and Culture

Linguistics

Descriptive grammar and syntactic theory, information structure, syntactic typology, West African languages, especially Hausa and Kenyang.

The politics of intangible culture in ASEAN; women's role in Indonesian documentary film; trance-possession dance in Java

Second language acquisition (grammatical and pragmatic development, impact of study abroad), language pedagogy, psycholinguistics (language production, cognition and language), Japanese linguistics.

Dr Kamdem returns to SOAS as a Research Associate, having previously taught in the Linguistics Department and Africa Section.

Syntax, semantics, Dynamic Syntax, diachronic syntax, modelling of dialogue in formal theories of language

Classical Arabic literature, Islamic Prophetic Literature, Comparative literature

Grammatical typology, grammaticalization, morphosyntax, language contact, language evolution.

Phonological theory, morpho-phonology, prosodic/phrasal phonology, second language phonology, phonology-syntax interface, Bantu languages

Language documentation and description, contact linguistics, anthropological linguistics, syntax-semantics interface, argument structure, Ajami writing in Africa, Niger-Congo languages, Mande languages, Atlantic languages, Jalonke (Fuuta Jalon, Guinea), Bainouk (Casamance, Senegal)

Sociolinguistics; historical linguistics; anthropological linguistics; language documentation and description; pidgins and creoles; Lingua Franca

Swahili literature; African philosophy; Afrophone philosophical discourses; literatures in African languages

Sociolinguistics, Language contact, English and Regional languages, Linguistic vitality, Linguistic landscape, Ethnomusicology, Ethnolinguistic culture, Plurilingualism, Translanguaging, Research Methods, Stylistics, Psychoanalysis

Prosody, information structure and language contact. Jaminjung,Ngarinyman and all Australian languages. Language documentation and description.

Sanskrit language and literature; classical Indian religions; folklore and music of Baltistan

Stefan Sperl's research area includes classical and modern Arabic literature, comparative literature, Qur’an and Hadith studies, Islamic art, Sufism and Neoplatonism, and refugee and exile studies.

Dr Yuri Stoyanov's research interests and teaching activities include comparative literature in the fields of apocalypticism, mysticism and heresy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Structural and descriptive linguistics, syntax, semantics, Bengali grammar and lexicography, philosophy of language

Language documentation, endangered languages, field linguistics and linguistic theory, information structure, syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface, predicate-argument relations, Role and Reference Grammar, prosody, autosegmental metrical models, historical linguistics, Austronesian languages, Romance languages

Emeritus Professor of Sanskrit, University of London; Vedic religion, Classical Sanskrit literature, Middle Indian languages and cultures.