Navid Saberi-Najafi

Navid profile photo

Position Title
Continuing Lecturer in Persian

118E Everson Hall
1 Shields Avenue, Davis CA 95616
Office Hours

Wednesday: 10:00am-11:00am
Friday: 12:00pm-1:00pm via Zoom
or by appointment
Bio

Education

  • PhD, Comparative Literature, UC Davis
  • MA, Comparative Literature, UC Davis
  • MA, English, University of Idaho
  • BA, English Language and Literature, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran

About

Navid Saberi-Najafi holds a PhD in comparative literature, currently serving as Programme Coordinator at the University of California, Davis. He has over 16 years of experience teaching a vast array of language and literature courses: In Iran, he taught English-language proficiency courses, and in the US, he has taught courses on English composition, on comparative literature, and on the Persian language since 2009. At UC Davis, he was one of the co-founders of the Persian programme. Before pursuing his graduate studies in the US, Saberi-Najafi was an international relations officer at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in northeastern Iran. Recently, he served as Persian Literature Examiner Responsible for the International Baccalaureate (Cardiff, Wales branch).


Saberi-Najafi is currently completing a monograph on the depiction of salvation in classical Persian literature, analysing philosophical, jurisprudential, and mystical texts. His most recent publication explores the motif of the Sīmurgh in the Rawḍat al-farīqayn--a mysticojurisprudential treatise.

Research Focus

Classical Persian Literature, Sufism, Islamic Philosophy, Middle English Literature

 

Publications

Saberi-Najafi, Navid. “The Sīmurgh in Chāch: Bird Symbolism in the Rawḍat al-farīqayn.” The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (2021): The Sīmurgh in Chach: bird symbolism in the Rawdat al-fariqayn: British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies: Vol 0, No 0 (tandfonline.com).

Sanā’ī of Ghazna. "On the Merciful God and on the Birds’ Glorifications." Transcribed, translated, edited, and introduced by Navid Saberi-Najafi. The Stanford Global Medieval Sourcebook (summer 2020). https://sourcebook.stanford.edu/text/merciful-god-and-birds%E2%80%99-glorifications.

Sharafjahan, Rozita, Anahita Ghabaian, Maryam Majd, Masoumeh Mozaffari, and Keivan Moussavi-Aghdam. Interview by Combiz Moussavi-Aghdam, Talinn Grigor, and Rebecca M. Brown. “In Tehran: A Conversation with Iranian Gallerists.” Translated and edited by Navid Saberi-Najafi. Art Journal 77, no. 4 (Winter 2018): 6-25. http://artjournal.collegeart.org/?p=10857. [invited translation cited by Visiting Arts—a charitable organization that “fosters understanding and compassion between cultures”: http://www.visitingarts.org.uk/programmes/exchange/uk-iran-short-story-translation-residency/iran-resources/]

Saberi-Najafi, Navid. “Suhrawardi’s Epistle of the Bird: A New Reading,” abstract, Michigan Academician 43, no. 1-2 (2016): 280, doi: https://doi.org/10.7245/0026-2005-43.1.183.

Saberi-Najafi, Navid. “The Journey of the Soul in Attar and Langland.” The International Journal of Literary Humanities 11.3 (2014): 27-35.

Saberi-Najafi, Navid. “Edward W. Said’s Humanism: A Road to Enlightenment and Coexistence.” The International Journal of Critical Cultural Studies: A Section of The International Journal of the Humanities 10.1 (2013): 43-51.

Saberi-Najafi, Navid, and Steve Chandler. “A Shift from the Mainstream Class to the Cross-Cultural Option for ESL Writing Students.” Proceedings of the 2012 Hawaii University International Conferences on Arts & Humanities. January 8th-10th, 2012, Honolulu, Hawaii. [cited here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=K5zvSEoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao]

Saberi-Najafi, Navid, and Kazem Rezvani. “The Change of Expression after the Process of Translation in Mohammad Saeedi’s Translation of Oscar Wilde’s Salome.” Motarjem Quarterly, Winter 2005: 113-118. [cited here: http://motarjemjournal.ir/2016/08/683]

Teaching

Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Persian

Awards

Academic Federation Committee on Research Travel Award (2018)

HArCS Dean’s Summer Fellowship (2014)

Southern Comparative Literature Association Travel Award (2012)

Various awards and grants: 2009-present