TAMIU Professor Co-Edits New Text on Orientalism

Texas A&M International University associate provost and professor of English, Dr. Jeff Cass, has co-edited an important new text for scholarly study of Orientalism for The Ohio State University Press.

“Interrogating Orientalism: Contextual Approaches and Pedagogical Practices,” is a collection of essays that look at both context and teaching of Orientalism, a 19th century belief rooted in the British colonial period that maintained that Western culture was superior to that of the Islamic countries of the Near and Middle East.

Co-edited with Diane Long Hoeveler, a professor of English at Marquette University, the 288-page text includes essays that offer a chronological survey with notable contributions by academic luminaries in the field.  Individually and in combination, they work to offer groundwork for a critical model that can explain the always-complex interchanges between Orient and Occident.

Cass, who has been part of the University’s faculty since 1991, currently serves as associate provost, in addition to his duties as professor of English. 

He has also recently been appointed by The Texas A&M University System’s Council of Graduate Deans to its graduate faculty. His appointment for a five-year term provides opportunities to participate in graduate education at all A&M System universities through service on graduate committees, advising graduate students and teaching graduate courses.

He holds his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), his MA in Comparative Literature, also from UCSD, and a BA in English and German from the University of Dallas.

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