Clive Holes was Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at the University of Oxford until 2014, and is now Emeritus Professorial Fellow at Magdalen College. Prior to coming to Oxford he held positions at the University of Salford and University of Cambridge. He has written extensively on the Arabic language, its dialectology, and sociolinguistics, including Dialect, Culture, and Society in Eastern Arabia (three volumes; Brill, 2001-2016), and Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties (Longman, 1995; revised edition Georgetown University Press, 2004).