Curriculum Vitae
Education & Scholarships
Columbia University
2013-2020 | Dean's Fellow, PhD in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies
Concentration, Institute for Comparative Literature and Society
New York University (NYU)
2009-2011 | Henry M. MacCracken Fellow, MA in Near Eastern Studies
American University in Cairo (AUC)
2007-2008 | CASA Fellow, Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA)
2006-2007 | Maguire Scholarship, Arabic Language Institute (ALI)
2001-2005 | BA in Philosophy, General and Departmental Honors
Teaching Experience
Poly Prep Country Day School
2021 - Present | Teacher, 9th-12th grade World History
Fall 2019 | Teacher (full time, leave replacement), 9th grade World History
Prep for Prep
Summer 2021 | Teacher, 5th and 6th grade U.S. History
The Brearley School
2020-2021 | Teacher (one-year leave replacement), 6th and 8th grade World History
Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY)
Spring 2020 | Adjunct faculty, "History of Islam 600-1258" and "Origins of the Modern Middle East, 1299-1922"
Columbia University
Spring 2017 | Instructor, The Arabic Novel and Its Others
Spring 2016 | Head Teaching Assistant (TA), Contemporary Islamic Civilization
Fall 2015 | TA, Classical Islamic Civilization
2014-2015 | TA, Arabic Language (First, Second and Third Year)
W.E.B. DuBois Institute, Princeton University
Summer 2016 | Teacher, Fictions of the Modern Middle East (9th graders)
Summer 2015 | Teacher, Contemporary Issues in the Modern Middle East (9th graders)
Volunteer Teaching
2018 | English Teacher, Migrant Community Center (Beirut)
2013 | Instructor, Readings in Migration Literature: A Course for Refugee Interpreters (Cairo)
2011-2013 | Founder & Facilitator, Rethinking Refuge: An Interdisciplinary Discussion Group
2009-2010 | Assistant English Teacher, Arab American Family Support Center (Brooklyn)
2007 | Youth Mentor, Dar al-Takamal Orphanage (Cairo)
2006-2008 | English Teacher, Students Taking Action for Refugees (Cairo)
2004-2005 | Tutor, Grace Smith Home for Battered Women (Poughkeepsie, NY)
Fellowships & Awards
2018 | Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship (SSRC), to support a year of dissertation research on Arabic manuscripts in Lebanon
Fall 2017 & Spring 2019 | Mellon Humanities International Travel Fellowship (Columbia), to support a semester of dissertation research (awarded twice)
2017 | Caine Prize for African Writing, a £10,000 prize awarded to my English translation of Sudanese author Bushra al-Fadil’s “The Story of the Girl Whose Birds Flew Away"
Summer 2017 | Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (Columbia), for Arabic studies at the Subul al-Salam Institute in Fez, Morocco
Spring 2017 | Teaching Scholars Scholarship, to design and teach my own undergraduate seminar
2015-2016 | Lead Teaching Fellowship: to implement a peer teacher system in our department
2014-2015 | Teagle Fellowship: training in lesson planning and learning assessment
2015 | PEN Translates Award, for The Book of Khartoum (Comma Press, 2016)
2009-2011 | Henry M. MacCracken Fellowship, full two-year scholarship to attend the MA program in Near Eastern Studies at NYU
Summer 2010 | Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (NYU), for the study of Classical Arabic and Islamic texts at al-Diwan Center in Cairo, Egypt
2007-2008 | CASA Fellowship, the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) at the American University in Cairo
2008 | J.W. Saxe Memorial Fund
2007 | Teacher of the Year, awarded by the STAR English program
2006-2007 | Maguire Scholarship (Vassar College), year-long scholarship at the Arabic Language Institute at the American University in Cairo
Recent Publications
Max Shmookler and Diaa al-Aswad, Ahmad al-Barbir’s Maqamat: A Critical Edition in Arabic (Orient Institut Beirut, early 2021).
Max Shmookler, “Each Nail a Jail: Kitab al-Masamir as Contemporary Critique” in Intellectual History of the Islamicate World (May 2021): 1-25.
Max Shmookler and Raph Cormack, co-editors, The Book of Khartoum: A City in Short Fiction (London: Comma Press, 2016). My short story translation in this collection was awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2017.
Areas of Teaching Specialization
World History, Middle Eastern History, History of Islam, Arabic Literature and Language, Literary Theory.
