Hacı Osman Gündüz (Ozzy)

Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature

Arabic Language and Literature; Ottoman Arabic Literature; Literary and Cultural History; Manuscript Studies

Professor Gündüz is a literary historian specializing in Arabic literature of the Ottoman period, particularly the Arabic literary culture of sixteenth-century Damascus. His research explores the social worlds in which Arabic literature was produced and circulated, with particular interests in patronage, literary sociability, multilingualism, manuscript transmission, and changing ideas of literary value. 

His current book project centers on Māmayya al-Rūmī (d. 1577/9), a Janissary-turned-poet whose life and writings offer a window onto the vibrant literary culture of the early Ottoman Levant. Through Māmayya’s career and the networks in which he participated, Professor Gündüz examines the relationships among poetry, social status, imperial belonging, literary taste, and the institutions and communities that shaped Arabic literary production.

At Macalester, Professor Gündüz teaches Arabic language at all levels as well as courses on Arabic and Islamicate literature and culture. His courses include Arabian Nights and Before Homosexuality: Same-Sex Desire and Expression in the Pre-Modern Islamicate World.

Professor Gündüz grew up in Bayburt and Erzurum, Turkey. He received his PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Harvard University, where his doctoral dissertation received the Alwaleed Bin Talal Dissertation Prize in Islamic Studies.