I am a scholar of Classical Persian Literature interested in gender & sexuality, embodiment, the history of emotions, and race/ethnicity in premodern Persianate literature and Perso-Islamicate culture. My first book project examines the construction of masculinities in long narrative poems (masnavis) from the eleventh to the seventeenth century CE. I have also worked on gendered ethics in Persianate advice literature as well as its connection to the Global Medieval world.

I currently offer the following courses:

PERS 451: Persian through the Shahnameh for Advanced Speakers of Persian

ASIA 392: Classical Persian Literature in English Translation

ASIA 393: History of Iran from the Sasanians to the Safavids

ASIA 366B: Gender & Sexuality in Classical Persian Literature

“Cats and Dogs, Manliness and Misogyny: On the Sindbad-nameh as World Literature.” In Persian Literature as World Literature, edited by Mostafa Abedinifard, Amirhossein Vafa, and Omid Azadibougar, 137-152. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.

“Angry Men: On Emotions and Masculinities in Samarqandī’s Sindbād-nāmeh.” Narrative Culture 7, no. 2 (2020): 145-164