Pamela Klasova is Assistant Professor of Classical Arabic Literature in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago. She previously taught at Bowdoin College and Macalester College. Her work lies at the intersection of classical Arabic literature, Islamic history, and Late Antiquity. Her first book, The Eloquent Tyrant: Speech and Empire in Umayyad Iraq under al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf al-Thaqafī, 694–714 (University of California Press, 2025), examines Arabic oratory in the context of early Islamic empire-building through the case of the famous Umayyad governor al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf al-Thaqafī. She has also published on early Arabic poetry, ḥadīth, and medieval Islamic historiography. She is currently working on her second book project, tentatively titled The Endless Journey: Early Arabic Poetry and Its Transformations.

Learn more about her research and publications here.