Richard Nedjat-Haiem

Richard Nedjat-Haiem is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on language change, popular culture, and media in the Arab world, with particular attention to Arabic sociolinguistics, music, and transregional cultural flows. His dissertation, Pluri-Arabism: Language Change in Arabic Popular Culture, explores how shifts in linguistic norms reflect broader geopolitical and cultural transformations, especially the growing influence of Gulf-based media.

He holds a B.A. from UCLA and an M.A. from the University of Chicago in Middle Eastern Studies. In 2024, he was a CASA II Arabic fellow in Amman, Jordan, where he conducted fieldwork across the region. Richard has published on topics including pan-Arab identity in pop music and the legacy of Iranian singer Hayedeh, and has translated literary works from Persian. He is fluent in English, Persian, Arabic, and French.