Faris Zwirahn (فارس زويران) is a Syrian-American scholar with a diverse academic background and interests. As a lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, in addition to his keen interest in the Arabic language and literature, he has a strong interest in modern Islamic thought and society, the Arab and Muslim communities in North America, distributive global justice, transitional justice, political theory, human rights, and Syria. He is currently conducting a study that examines the difficulties encountered in Arabic language classrooms while teaching and learning Arabic within the framework of the Israel-Palestine conflict, especially in light of the recent Gaza war.

Selected Publications

In peer-reviewed journals:

“Typologies and Argumentation Tactics in Religious Polemics: An Analysis of al-Jawāb al Ṣaḥīḥ and the Cyprus Letter,” Entangled Religions 5 (2018): 44-94. 

List of courses taught at Princeton:

(FRS 122) From Reel to the Real: The Middle East in Western Popular Culture

(ARA 403) Readings in Arabic Modern Political Text

(ARA 404) Texts from Arabic Prison Literature

(ARA 401) The West in the Writings of Arab Travelers and Intellectuals

(ARA 305) Levantine Arabic I

(ARA 306) Levantine Arabic II

First-Year Modern Standard Arabic

Second-Year Modern Standard Arabic