Joshua Bernstein is Associate Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies in English at the University of Southern Mississippi. He received his A.B. with Honors in Middle Eastern Studies from Brown University, his M.A. from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and his Ph.D. from the Program in Creative Writing & Literature at the University of Southern California.

A novelist and creative writer with a special interest in political fiction and the works of Joseph Conrad, Bernstein was awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Scholar fellowship for his project “Under Conrad’s Eyes: Weaving Fiction and History in Jerusalem.” The project centers on a new novel, based partly on Conrad’s Under Western Eyes, that explores the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is set in Jerusalem in the mid-1950s. He will also teach at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Bernstein’s recent publications include:

Rachel’s Tomb. New Issues Press, 2019. (AWP Award Series Novel Prize)

Glass Essays. Variant, 2023.

“Before Dusk.” Washington Square Review, Issue 50, Fall 2023.