Associate Professor Moustafa Bayoumi
Department of English
Interviewed by Honors Academy student James Rodriguez
Born in Switzerland and reared in Canada, Moustafa Bayoumi came to New York City and completed his Ph.D. in English and comparative literature at Columbia University. His area of scholarly expertise is postcolonial literature and theory. "I am very interested in the ways in which certain stories get told and recognized and others don't as well as the relationship of politics and culture and the world to the text." An accomplished author, his most recent book, How Does it Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America, is the winner of both the American Book Award and the Arab American Book Award.
For Bayoumi, the best part of working at a college is interacting with students, and it is clear that students enjoy interacting with him: He is a recipient of the Claire Tow Distinguished Teaching Award. "BC students have a desire to learn, an eagerness to engage and a real range of life experiences that adds a lot to the classroom and to the environment of the college that I didn't necessarily see in other places where I have taught. It's a tremendous vitality that in a lot of ways is reflective of the borough of Brooklyn and New York City." Bayoumi says that "the most rewarding part of being a teacher is when someone knocks on your door many years later and says that your class was the one that really launched his or her career. When that happens, it is tremendously rewarding."
