Dwight Reynolds

Dwight F. Reynolds is Distinguished Professor of Arabic Language & Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on musical and literary traditions of the medieval and modern Arab Middle East and is rooted in ethnographic research conducted in Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. His books include Medieval Arab Music and Musicians (Brill 2021), The Musical Heritage of al-Andalus (Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2020), The Cambridge Companion to Modern Arab Culture (CUP, 2015), Arab Folklore: A Handbook (Greenwood Press, 2007); Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition (University of California Press, 2001); Heroic Poets, Poetic Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in an Arabic Oral Epic Tradition (Cornell University Press, 1995). He also co-edited with Virginia Danielson and Scott Marcus The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 6: The Middle East (Garland, 2002). His most recent work, Tarab: Music, Ecstasy, Emotion and Performance (University of Texas Press), co-edited with Michael Frishkopf and Scott Marcus, will be released in July 2025.