Ihab Habib Hassan (Arabic: إيهاب حبيب حسن; October 17, 1925 – September 10, 2015) was an Egypt-born American literary theorist and writer. He was known for popularizing the concept of postmodernism in literary studies with his influential 1971 book, The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature.

Works

Hassan's written works include:

  • Radical Innocence: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel (1961)
  • The Literature of Silence: Henry Miller and Samuel Beckett (1967)
  • The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature (1971, 1982)
  • Paracriticisms: Seven Speculations of the Times (1975)
  • The Right Promethean Fire: Imagination, Science, and Cultural Change (1980)
  • Out of Egypt: Scenes and Arguments of an Autobiography (1985)
  • The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture (1987)
  • Selves at Risk: Patterns of Quest in Contemporary American Letters (1990)
  • Rumors of Change: Essays of Five Decades (1995)
  • Between the Eagle and the Sun: Traces of Japan (1996)
  • In Quest of Nothing: Selected Essays, 1998-2008 (2010)

Academic achievements

  • Guggenheim Fellowship (1958, 1962)
  • Faculty of the School of Letters, Indiana University (1964)
  • Faculty of the Salzburg Summer Seminars in American Studies (1965,1975)
  • Senior Fulbright Lectureships (1966, 1974, 1975)
  • Visiting Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1972)
  • Senior Fellow at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis (1974–1975)
  • Resident Scholar at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio (1978)
  • Senior Fellow at the Humanities Research Center in Canberra (1990, 2003)
  • Resident Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute of the University of California, Irvine (1990)
  • Faculty of the Stuttgart Summer Seminars in Cultural Studies (1991)
  • Honorary degree: Faculty of Humanities at Uppsala University, Sweden (1996)
  • Honorary degree: University of Giessen (1999)
  • Faculty of the Scandinavian Summer School of Literary Theory and Criticism in Karlskrona (2000, 2001, 2004).

Hassan also received Alumni Teaching Award and the Honors Program Teaching Award at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, where he taught for 29 years.

References

Archival collections

  • Guide to the Ihab Hassan Papers. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Other

  • Official Website
  • "Toward a Concept of Postmodernism" (1987)