Zarour Victor

Victor Zarour Zarzar

Adjunct Assistant Professor

Department

English

Office

501 Barnard Hall

Office Hours

By appt. T 4-6pm

Contact

Victor Zarour Zarzar received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from The Graduate Center, CUNY, where he was also a Postdoctoral Researcher. His dissertation, titled “The Ends of Plot: Rupture and Entanglement in L’amica geniale,” investigated conceptions of plot in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, employing narrative and feminist theory to contextualize the cycle within the larger tapestry of modern European novelistic discourse. His areas of interest include the histories of the novel, contemporary Italian literature, and the literature of migration. He served as Managing Editor of gender/sexuality/italy from 2018 until 2022. He has taught world literature at Baruch College since 2016.

  • Ph.D., Comparative Literature, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 2019
  • M.Phil., Comparative Literature, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 2017
  • B.A., English, John Cabot University, 2014

  • “An Alternative Geometry: L’amica geniale and the Bildungsroman.” Modern Language
  • Review, Vol. 116, Issue 3 (2021) 445-461.
  • “To Read against Ferrante—or alongside Her?” Public Books, 2021.
  • “‘The Past Is Anything But’: On Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults.” Asymptote,
  • 2020.
  • “Lila Unbound: Critical Negativity and Entropy in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels.”
  • California Italian Studies, Vol. 10, Issue 2 (2020) 1-15.
  • “Bad Blood: On Culpability and a Metabolic Approach to Elena Ferrante’s L’amica
  • geniale.” Journal of Narrative Theory, Vol. 50, Issue 2 (2020) 263-285.
  • “The Grammar of Abandonment in I giorni dell’abbandono.” Modern Language Notes,
  • Vol. 135, Issue 1 (2020) 327-344.
  • “Authoring Desire: Great Expectations and the Bildungsroman.” Dickens Quarterly, Vol.
  • 36, No. 4 (2019), 347-361.
  • “Bumping into the Novelistic Scaffolding: Narrative Structure in Elena Ferrante’s Novels.”
  • Contemporary Women’s Writing, Vol. 13, Issue 2 (2019), 186-202.
  • “A Strange Geometry: On the Poetry of Moira Egan.” NeMLA Italian Studies, Vol. XL,
  • Issue 1 (2019), 31-39.