Leila Essa
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leilaessai.bsky.social
Leila Essa
@leilaessai.bsky.social
580 followers 280 following 420 posts
assistant professor of comparative literature at utrecht uni. projects on post-partition lit & authorial politics. current research and writing at https://intervention.sites.uu.nl/. she/her.
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leilaessai.bsky.social
1st session of the Publishing course for our MA today. Have been starting it with Percival Everett’s Erasure for the past three years and it’s always a winner. V glad I decided against replacing it with R. F. Kuang’s Yellowface
Two books: Simone Murray’s “Introduction to Contemporary Print Culture” and Percival Everett’s “Erasure”
November 13, 2025 at 11:44 AM
leilaessai.bsky.social
also read out this by @johannawinant.bsky.social and @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social in the first lecture just now to explain rationale of the assignments; it’s so nice (from here: slate.com/life/2025/10...)
Caring is the intellectual prerequisite of interpretation and argument. Close reading begins, as we describe it, with noticing: homing in on a detail in a text that piques one's curiosity or puzzlement. You cannot be curious or puzzled—or excited or angry or disappointed—unless you first care. Why this word rather than another? What difference does it make that Lincoln uses dedicate? Why does the young Antonía ask about colors; why does she connect Jim's eyes and the sky? The close reader scales up from a detail to build an argument about the entire text: a poem, a story, or a whole book. It's this move-from the noticed detail to a local claim about the detail in its immediate context, to an argument about the whole-that we believe is an act of communication and an argument, which is to say a way to share something that matters to you with someone else.
November 12, 2025 at 4:58 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Destroyer as last mystery act or the festival, many different types of guy united on one stage
November 9, 2025 at 6:24 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Devendra Banhart at Le Guess Who tomight
November 8, 2025 at 9:57 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
day 2 curls ready for festival day 2 (sorry, I don’t have insta anymore)
morning sun selfie
November 7, 2025 at 9:01 AM
leilaessai.bsky.social
A tasteful black-and-white rendering of the photo in original post, only DJ Carey smiles and it says “I believe him”
November 7, 2025 at 8:13 AM
leilaessai.bsky.social
these are my LLM guidelines for the course - grateful for everyone who’s shared their approaches on here and especially for the ideas shared on the against-a-i.com website by @annakornbluh.bsky.social @ehayot.bsky.social and Krista Muratore
Photo of syllabus section “Use of Large Language Models (LLM or 'AI’)”: “The use of LLM tools (i.e. of generative 'artificial intelligence') such as ChatGPT is not allowed in this course, but more importantly, it is not necessary: the above assessments are specifically geared towards encouraging your own spontaneous thinking. It would be significantly more effort for you to try and generate your weekly 250-350 words about the specific texts in our course reader with an LLM than to simply take that same time to write down your personal, original reactions to the text. It will make our seminars infinitely more rewarding to hear about each other's own thoughts - not the 'most likely' thoughts that a machine might spit out. There will be no way to use LLMs on the university computer for your paper, so I also encourage you to take Assignment One seriously as practice for your own spontaneous thinking and writing.”
November 7, 2025 at 6:59 AM
leilaessai.bsky.social
prepping my first lecture for the Migration and Diaspora course next week and honestly cannot wait to teach my new syllabus
Weekly Overview 2025/26 All mandatory set reading is available in the course reader (except for the novel in Week 6). All optional recommended reading is available via the UU library or linked below. Week 1: Introduction Lecture Wednesday 12 November Seminars Friday 14 November Set Academic Reading: - Sara Ahmed, ‘Home and Away: Narratives of Migration and Estrangement’ (1999) - Anne Potjans, Anja Sunhyun Michaelsen, Elahe Haschemi Yekani, Thao Ho and Fenja Akinde-Hummel (research group Tales of the Diasporic Ordinary), ‘A Conversation on Diaspora’ (2024) Recommended Reading: - Paul Gilroy, ‘Diaspora’, Paragraph 17 (1994): 207-212 - Michel Bruneau, ‘Diasporas, transnational spaces and communities’ in Diaspora and Transnationalism: Concepts, Theories and Methods, ed. by Rainer Bauböck and Thomas Faist (Amsterdam University Press, 2010), pp. 35-49 Week 2: Short Stories of Displacement (1950s-1980s) Lecture Wednesday 19 November Seminars Friday 21 November Set Literary Reading: - Saadat Hasan Manto, ‘Toba Tek Singh’ (first published in 1955, translated from Urdu) - Samira Azzam, ‘Another Year’ (first published around the 1950s or 60s, translated from Arabic) - Isaac Bashevis Singer, ‘The Letter Writer’ (first published in 1968, translated from Yiddish) - Ntozake Shange, ‘aw, babee, you so pretty’ (first published around the 1970s or 80s) Recommended Reading: - Leslie A. Flemming, ‘Riots and Refugees: The Post-Partiton Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto’, Journal of South Asian Literature, 13 (1977): 99–109 - Yasir Suleiman, ‘Palestine and the Palestinians in the Short Stories of Samira Azzam’, Journal of Arabic Literature, 22 (1991): 154-165 - Leonard Kriegel, ‘This World and That Shtetl: The Short Fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer’, The Sewanee Review, 113 (2005): 332-337 - Elizabeth Brown-Guillory, ‘Ntozake Shange: A Cultural War Correspondent—an Interview.” CLA Journal (2019): 111-131 Week 3: Essays on the Borders of Language (1980s-1990s) Lecture Wednesday 26 November Seminars Friday 28 November Set Literary Reading: - Etel Adnan, ‘To Write in a Foreign Language’ (first published in 1984 or 1989) - Gloria Anzaldúa, ‘The Homeland, Aztlán: El otro México’, ‘How to Tame a Wild Tongue’, and ‘Tlilli, Tlapalli: The Path of the Red and Black Ink’ (first published in 1987) - Astrid Roemer, ‘In Search of My Own Voice’ (dated 1995, first published in 1997) Recommended Reading: - Jennifer Scappettone, ‘“Fog is My Land”: A Citizenship of Mutual Estrangement in the Painted Books of Etel Adnan’, in Reading Experimental Writing, ed. by Georgina Colby (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), pp. 15-50 - Azade Seyhan, ‘At Different Borders/On Common Grounds’, in Writing Outside the Nation (Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 116-145 - Yra van Dijk and Ghanima Kowsoleea, ‘A Central Voice in Caribbean Literature: Media and Memory in the Novels of Astrid Roemer’, NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 96 (2022): 29–54. Week 4: Poetry of Exile (1990s-2000s) Lecture Wednesday 3 December Seminars Friday 5 December Set Literary Reading: - Mahmoud Darwish, poems from The Butterfly’s Burden (first published between 1998 and 2003, translated from Arabic) Set Academic Reading: - Refqa Abu-Remaileh, ‘Country of Words: Palestinian Literature in the Digital Age of the Refugee’ (2021) - Also explore Abu-Remaileh’s literary maps interactively at https://countryofwords.org/ (2023) Recommended Reading: - Charlotte Salmi, ‘“A Necessary Forgetfulness of the Memory of Place”: Mahmoud Darwish’s Poetry of No Return’, Interventions, 14 (2012): 55–68 - Edward Said, ‘Reflections of Exile’, Granta, 13 (1984), https://granta.com/reflections-on-exile/ Week 5: Anthologies of Belonging Across Contexts (2010s) Lecture Wednesday 10 December Seminars Friday 12 December Set Literary Reading: - excerpts from The Good Immigrant (first published in 2016): Nikesh Shukla, ‘Editor’s Note’ and ‘Namaste’ Vinay Patel, ‘Death is a Many-Headed Monster’ Musa Okwonga, ‘The Ungrateful Country’ - excerpts from The Good Immigrant USA (first published in 2019): Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman, ‘Editors’ Note’ Porochista Khakpour, ‘How to Write Iranian-America, or The Last Essay’ Chimene Suleyman, ‘On Being Kim Kardashian’ - excerpts from Your Homeland is Our Nightmare (first published in 2019, translated from German): Fatma Aydemir and Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, ‘Foreword to the Collection’ Sasha Marianna Salzmann, ‘Visible’ Deniz Utlu, ‘Trust’ Set Academic Reading: - Rehana Ahmed, ‘“We tick: Other”– race, religion, and literary solidarities in three essay anthologies and the neo-liberal marketplace’ (2023) Recommended Reading: - Saha and van Lente, ‘The Limits of Diversity: How Publishing Industries Make Race’, International Journal of Communication, 16 (2022): 1804-1822 (open access). - for those who can read Dutch: De Goede Immigrant, edited by Anousha Nzume, Ebissé Wakjira-Rouw and Mariam El Maslohui (Uitgeverij Pluim, 2020) Week 6 A Novel of ‘Postmigration’? (2020s) Lecture Wednesday 17 December Seminars Friday 19 December Set Literary Reading: - Mithu Sanyal, Identitti (first published in 2021, translated from German) Set Academic Reading: - Leila Essa, ‘Seen as Friendly, Seen as Frightening? A Conversation on Visibilities, Kinship and the Right Words with Mithu Sanyal’ (2024) Recommended Reading: - Anna Meera Gaonkar, Astrid Sophie Øst Hansen, Hans Christian Post, and Moritz Schramm, ‘Introduction’, in Postmigration: Art, Culture and Politics in Contemporary Europe (Transcript, 2021), pp. 11-42 - Sophie Schweiger, ‘Intertextual Identittis? Sanyal’s Ambiguous Acts of Appropriation’, Genealogy+Critique, 9 (2023): 1-21 After the break: in-person paper (see below) and end-of-course excursion (details to be confirmed)
November 5, 2025 at 3:51 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Worth all my hours at the scanner!!
A photo of the opened course reader: Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “We Walk on the Bridge” in the original Arabic and in Fady Joudah’s English translation
October 30, 2025 at 5:25 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Wah it’s arrived and I’m actually so excited for teaching with a proper old-school course reader for the first time
Photo of a bound course reader for the course “Migration and Diaspora” at Utrecht University
October 30, 2025 at 5:23 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
let’s check this out then
Adrian Duncan’s “The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth” - a purple cover page with black and white fonts and a black-and-white photo of a snowy mountain range mirrored in a lake
October 26, 2025 at 12:49 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Huge librarian appreciation week over here - taking care of, vocally supporting, and chasing up every single one of my purchase requests for this course
Mahmoud Darwish’s The Butterfly Burden reserved under my name
October 10, 2025 at 1:20 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
The wonderful Utrecht University librarians did get ahold of this out-of-print book for me, which is listed as the original place of publication in the German translation, but it turns out that it contains an interview with Adnan rather than the essay
Unheard Words: Women and Literature in Africa, the Arab World, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America, edited by Mineke Schipper
October 9, 2025 at 8:31 AM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Took this home too
Book: Etel Adnan, Laure Adler: The Beauty of Light - Interviews. Translated by Ethan Mitchell
October 1, 2025 at 12:12 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Isabella Hammad is as brilliant and insightful in person as she is in writing
Isabella Hammad and Maurits de Bruijn in discussion with their moderator on stage at International Literature Festival Utrecht
September 27, 2025 at 2:13 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
A genuine joy to share our shortlist for the Kurt-Tucholsky-Preis 2025. Congratulations to Maryam Aras, Christiane Frohmann, Miedya Mahmod, Manja Präkels, and Ruth-Maria Thomas! tucholsky-gesellschaft.de/kurt-tuchols...
Screenshot: „Die Jury für den Kurt-Tucholsky-Preis 2025 hat die eingegangenen Vorschläge gesichtet und sich auf folgende alphabetisch geordnete Shortlist für die Preisvergabe 2025 verständigt: • Aras, Maryam (Infos z.B. hier). • Frohmann, Christiane (Infos z.B. hier) • Mahmod, Miedya (Infos z.B. hier) • Präkels, Manja (Infos z.B. hier) • Thomas, Ruth-Maria (Infos z.B. hier)“
September 2, 2025 at 9:15 AM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Utrecht University and HKU students and stuff for Palestine opening the academic year. Big turn-out and lots of supportive bus drivers and postal and waste services drivers beeping their horns in support
A big Palestinian flag being waved. In the background a Utrecht University building, with a UU logo flag of its own surrounded by more Palestinian flags
September 1, 2025 at 11:16 AM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Utrecht today
Photo of a statue: a figure who looks like they are floating on air, mounted up on a high plinth - someone has draped a Palestinian flag around their arms that is fluttering in the wind. In the background blue skies and trees and the Utrecht Dom
August 26, 2025 at 9:48 AM
leilaessai.bsky.social
A page from Charlotte Delbo’s Auschwitz and After. It shows the following poem: “O you who know did you know that hunger makes the eyes sparkle that thirst dims them O you who know did you know that you can see your mother dead and not shed a tear O you who know did you know that in the morning you wish for death and in the evening you fear it O you who know did you know that a day is longer than a year a minute longer than a lifetime O you who know did you know that legs are more vulnerable than eyes nerves harder than bones the heart firmer than steel Did you know that the stones of the road do not weep that there is one word only for dread one for anguish Did you know that suffering is limitless that horror cannot be circumscribed Did you know this You who know.”
August 22, 2025 at 12:42 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Ah man, this has arrived
A second-hand copy of Charlotte Delbo’s Auschwitz and After, with a photo of the author on the cover
August 21, 2025 at 12:37 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Oh my God, I spoke to soon: absolutely abysmal statement published now and signed by The Editors?! www.weltbuehne.com/en/press/
A screenshot from “Die Weltbühne”: “This also raises the question of how best to honor the legacy of Tucholsky, Ossietzky, and Budzislawski in the 21st century. Put in market terms: is Weltbühne at risk of being a deceptive label, merely a façade, or, conversely, would the absence of right-wing positions reduce us to a one-dimensional leftist zeitgeist magazine? Are we one voice, or many? We also reflect on what follows from drawing rigid lines of exclusion versus cultivating debate. Back then, before the end of the first Weltbühne, rigid exclusions ended in catastrophe.“
August 19, 2025 at 8:53 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
extremely read copy from our uni library, we love to see it
Holding a pile of books in my hand, on top is an old paperback copy of Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza with a cover page that is in the process of falling apart
August 19, 2025 at 9:33 AM
leilaessai.bsky.social
big “I love living here so much” weekend
A photo taken of a crowd of people all turned away from the camera towards an outdoor cinema screen. Behind them: cute Dutch houses and the big Utrecht Dom tower, golden in the last sun of the day, blue skies. A photo of me at Utrecht flower market, holding a huge colourful bouquet.
August 16, 2025 at 11:25 AM
leilaessai.bsky.social
Utrecht tonight
People have laid down flowers and a Palestine flag below pictures of the murdered Palestinian journalists Anas Al-Sharif and Ibrahim Zaher. Among the written signs, one says “They took his life, we carry his words. Anas Al-Sharif”
August 15, 2025 at 7:02 PM
leilaessai.bsky.social
“Utrecht is standing against genocide” - heartening to see so many show up, disheartening that we’ve been at these protests for 21 months and the Dutch government doesn’t give a shit
July 24, 2025 at 6:50 PM