About

I am a scholar of Middle Eastern cultural and literary history with specializations in Persian literature, Iranian history, and Persianate cultural history.

Research

In my first manuscript, Reimagining Europe: Persian Travel Writing and New Perceptions of Europe in Early Nineteenth-Century Iran I show that, through travel and writing about travel to Europe, Iranians critically examined universal education for boys and girls, division of power in the government, separation of religion and state, and national progress (“taraqqī”) for Iran. I argue that Iranian travelers observed Europe as cultural carriers and intermediaries, narratively mapping and intellectually examining Europe to propose how Iran could benefit from Industrial Revolution era European politics, society, and culture.

In my second project, with the tentative title of Is There a Persian Novel? I examine how Persophone litterateurs drew upon conventions of Persian modes of literary production, most notably travel writing, as well as the European novel, to write novelistic narratives. Building upon theories of the novel, I demonstrate how certain conceptualizations of time and place and of the self and the world in one millennium of Persian travel writing found their apotheosis in the earliest Persian novelistic narratives.

My articles have appeared in Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Multidisciplinary Studies: Mathal, International Journal of Persian Literature, and Studies in Travel Writing, as well as Routledge Handbook of Post Classical and Contemporary Persian Literature.

Teaching

Harvard University 

“Elementary Persian,” Instructor, 2021-present

“Intermediate Persian,” Instructor, 2021-present

“Advanced Persian,” Instructor, 2021-present

Babson College 

“Modern Middle East,” Instructor, Spring 2024

“Modern Middle East,” Instructor, Fall 2023

“Modern Middle East,” Instructor, Spring 2023 

University of Arizona 

“What is Politics,” Teaching Assistant for Noam Chomsky, Fall 2019 

“Religion of Islam,” Instructor, Fall 2018, Summer 2016 

“Religion of Islam,” Teaching Assistant, Spring 2018 

“Middle Eastern Humanities,” Instructor, Spring 2017 

“Middle Eastern Humanities,” Teaching Assistant, Fall 2017 

“Introduction to Political Islam,” Instructor, Summer 2017, Fall 2016 

“Middle East in the Twentieth Century,” Instructor, Spring 2016 

“Intermediate Persian,” Instructor, 2016-17 

“Elementary Persian,” Instructor, 2013-16  

“Advanced Persian,” Instructor, 2012-13 

University of Wisconsin-Madison 

“Intermediate Persian,” Faculty Associate, Summer 2019 

“Advanced Persian,” Faculty Associate, Summer 2018 

Publications

Books

The Quest for Progress in Early-Nineteenth-Century Iran: An Intellectual History. Draft manuscript completed.

Travel Writing in Nineteenth-Century Iran. Edition, Translation, and Commentary. Manuscript in preparation.

Guzārish-i Safar-i Mirzā Sālih Shirāzi [The Travelogue of Mirza Salih Shirazi] (1813). Translation and Commentary. Manuscript in preparation.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

2023        “The European Other, the Indo-Iranian Self and the Discourse of Wonder in the Earliest Persian Travelogues of Europe.” Studies in Travel Writing. 26, no.1 (2023): 34-52.

2023        “Abd al-Rahim Talebof’s Promotion of Nationality and National Sociopolitical Reforms in Kitab-i Ahmad (1890-1894)” in International Journal of Persian Literature. Volume 8 (September 2023): 41–60.

2022        “Female Voices and Historical Trends in the Longest Persian Novel: A Radical Criticism of Maḥmūd Dawlatʼābādī’s Kilīdar (1978-1984)” in International Journal of Persian Literature (under review)

2022         “Magical Realism and the Critique of Patriarchal and Political Repression in the Novels of Shahrnush Parsipur” in Comparative Literature and Culture (under review)

2021        “Islamic Rule and Iranian Women in the Films of Hatef Alimardani.” Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Multidisciplinary Studies: Mathal 7, no.1 (2021): 1-21.

2020        “Vaqaye‘-e Ettefaqiyeh (1851-1861) and the Education of the Iranian Nation in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century.” Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 59, no. 1 (January 2020): 130-146.

Refereed Book Chapter

2023        “One Thousand Years of Persian Travel Writing and Siyāhatnāmeh-ye Ebrāhim Beyg (1895) as Safarnāmeh” in Routledge Handbook of Persian Literature. Edited by Kamran Talattof (New York: Routledge, 2023): 45-67.

Translations

2021        Guzārish-i Safar-i Mirzā Sālih Shirāzi [The Travelogue of Mirza Salih Shirazi] (1813) by Mirza Salih Shirazi. Translation into English with a critical introduction. (in progress)

2019        How to Read World Literature by David Damrosch. Translated into Persian with a critical introduction. Tehran: SAMT.

Non-Refereed Publications

2022        “Safarnāmah Nivisān-i Qājāri: Tārikh Nigāran-i ‘Asr-i Jadid” [Qajar Travel Writers: Historians of the Modern Period] in Tajrobe Magazine 156, no. 6 (March 2022): 138-139.

2021        Review of The Love of Strangers: What Six Muslim Students Learned in Jane Austen’s London, by Nile Green. Iranian Studies 54, no. 5-6 (December 2021): 996-1000.

2019        “Nigāh-i Qarbmihwar Kumaki bih Dark-i ma az Adabiyāt-i Jahān Nimikunad” [A West-Oriented Outlook does not Help us Adequately in Understanding World Literature] in Iran’s Book News Agency (November 2019)

2015        Review of A Critical Introduction to Khomeini, ed. Arshin Adib-Moghaddam. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32, no. 3 (Summer 2015): 123-27.

2013        Review of The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History, ed. Touraj Daryaee. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 30, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 107-11.

Education

Ph.D., Near Eastern Studies, University of Arizona (2020)

M.A., English Literature and Critical Theory, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran (2011)

B.A., English Literature, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran (2008)