About

Program Director

Founded in 2008, the Program offers the Graduate Certificate in Experimental Critical Theory, which is open to graduate students enrolled in a Ph.D. or MFA program in any participating department at UCLA.

Professor Nouri Gana

Professor Nouri Gana of the Departments of Comparative Literature and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures directs the Program in Experimental Critical Theory for a one-year term (2024-2025).

He is the author of Melancholy Acts: Defeat and Cultural Critique in the Arab World (Fordham UP, 2023) & Signifying Loss: Toward a Poetics of Narrative Mourning (Bucknell UP, 2011 & paperback 2015), and the editor of The Making of the Tunisian Revolution: Contexts, Architects, Prospects as well as The Edinburgh Companion to the Arab Novel in English (Edinburgh UP, 2013).

Professor Emeritus Kenneth Reinhard

Founded in 2008 by Kenneth Reinhard, Professor Emeritus of both the Departments of Comparative Literature and English, the Program offers the Graduate Certificate in Experimental Critical Theory, which is open to graduate students enrolled in a Ph.D. or MFA program in any participating department at UCLA.

Professor Giulia Sissa
Professor Zrinka Stahuljak

Professors Zrinka Stahuljak of the Departments of Comparative Literature and European Languages and Transcultural Studies and Giulia Sissa of the Departments of Political Science, Comparative Literature and Classics co-directed the Program in Experimental Critical Theory for a two-year term (2021-2023) dedicated to epistemic comparison and narrative thinking. Professor Stahuljak solely directed the program for a one-year term in 2023-2024 dedicated to ternary positionality and relationality.