Personal Info
- Country of residence: Jordan
Information
Muhammad Hassan Muhammad Asfour is a Jordanian academic, researcher, translator, critic and poet, born in Haifa in 1940. He teaches English literature and translation at the University of Jordan and Philadelphia University.
He studied English at the University of Baghdad and obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1964 and completed his master’s degree at Indiana University in the United States of America in 1970. He received a doctorate in English literature from Indiana University in 1973. Asfour served as the head of the English language department at the University of Jordan for 8 years. Since 1982, he also held the position of Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Jordan, after which he held the position of Dean in the Faculty of Arts. Asfour’s literary subjects varied among university students, whether at the bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral levels. He studied poetry, drama, literary criticism, European literature, comparative literature, literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and literature in the twentieth century, in addition to teaching creative writing, rhetoric, debate and literary taste.
The works he translated
"Rejection", a short story by Franz Kafka, The Oil Workers (May 1965), 22-23 .
“Censorship of Cinema in Different Countries,” by various writers, dialogue (January-February 1966), 135-149.
"William Dean Howells" in Three Centuries of Literature, under the supervision of Forster and Fock, selected and supervised by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (Beirut: Library of Life, 1967), vol. 3, pp. 17-33.
"Lifeboat" by Stephen Crane, in the previous source, pp. 206-240.
Fishermen in a narrow street, a novel by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Beirut, Dar Al-Adab, 1974. The translation was published in several other editions.
“The Elixir of Life,” a story by Richard Garnett, Science Culture (November 1980), 4-8.
Primitive, Edited by Ashley Montagu, Kuwait, The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 1982.
Critical Concepts, by Renee Welk, Kuwait, The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 1987 AD.
Is humanity winning its battle? Report of the Independent Commission on Humanitarian Issues of the United Nations (Amman: 1989).
Biology, Anthropology, and Human Nature, by Stephen Rose et al., translated by Dr. Mustafa Ibrahim Fahmy, revised by Muhammad Asfour (Kuwait: The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 1990).
"Love in the Time of Cholera", Foreign Culture Magazine (Kuwait).
"Elliott and Curtsius", Foreign Culture Magazine (Kuwait).
"The Ingmar Bergman Profile", Foreign Culture Magazine (Kuwait).
"American Literature", Foreign Culture Magazine (Kuwait).
"Scientific Books for this Year", Journal of Foreign Culture (Kuwait).
Anatomy of Criticism, by Northrup Frye, Amman, University of Jordan, 1991.
Genius, Creativity and Leadership, by Dean Keith Simonton, translated by: Abdul Hamid Shaker, reviewed by Muhammad Asfour, Kuwait, National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 1993 AD.
Oral and Written, by Walter C. Ong, translated by Hassan Al-Banna Izz Al-Din, revised by Muhammad Asfour, Kuwait, The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 1994.
Structuralism and Beyond, edited by John Struck, Kuwait, The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 1996).
"The Andalusian Garden: A Study in Its Symbolic Connotations", by James Dicke, published in a book edited by Dr. Salma Al-Khadra Al-Jayousi
Introduction to Dr. Salma Al-Khadra Al-Jayousi's book, Selections from Palestinian Literature (Beirut: The Arab Institute for Studies and Publishing, 1997), p. 1-100.
Modern Social Theory, written by Ian Crepe, translated by Muhammad Husayn Ghuloom, revised by Muhammad Asfour, Kuwait, The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 1999.
The Dawn of Modern Science, by Toby Huff, Kuwait, The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 2000).
The Turks, the English and the Moroccans in the Age of Discovery, by Nabil Matar, Beirut, The Arab Institute for Studies and Publishing, 2012.
The Zionist Case, by Jacqueline Rose, Cairo, The National Center for Translation, 2007.
Forster and the Politics of Imperialism, by Muhammad Shaheen, Cairo, The Supreme Council of Culture, 2009.
The Novel and the Nation, by Patrick Barinder (Cairo: The Supreme Council of Culture, 2009)
The Genealogy of Religion: Control and Reasons for Power in Christianity and Islam, by Talal Asad, Beirut, Dar Al-Kitab Al-Jadeed, 2014
The World, the Text, and the Critic, by Edward Said (coming soon)
The Two Rocks of Time: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, by Stephen J. Gould, Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture [Kalima] 2010
Teach With Confidence, by Douglas Limov. Amman: Queen Rania Academy for Teacher Training,
His books are in Arabic
“Two Attitudes Towards Free Poetry,” Al-Adab (August 1964), 61-62.
“Hunters in a Narrow Street,” Al-Adab (June 1974), 38-41.
“Maher al-Batouti distorts the image of Joyce.” Foreign Literatures (July 1976), 290-297.
"The Image of Islam and Muslims in Western Literature Until the Eighteenth Century", Alam Al Fikr (January-March 1978), 135-154. The research was republished in Islamic Studies, an anthology published by Alam Al-Fikr magazine in 1984.
“The Meaning in Poetry,” Afkar (June 1978), 68-75.
Achievements and Awards
Awards and grants
Muhammad Asfour received many awards of appreciation for his literary works and contributions in the field of literary criticism, translation and advocacy for the Arabic language. At the University of Jordan on the university’s mission to obtain master’s and doctorate degrees from Indiana University between 1967 and 1973. He also received the Kuwait Prize for Scientific Advancement for the best translated book in 1983, and the Philadelphia University Certificate in recognition of outstanding work in translation into Arabic in 2004 He also won the Jordanian State Appreciation Award in the field of translation in 2012.
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- Years in active
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