Born and educated in the US, I have lived and conducted fieldwork and research in Iran (2012, 2014); Tajikistan (2007); Palestine (2011-12); Syria (2010); Egypt (2010, 2012); Azerbaijan (2006); Hyderabad, India (2008); Daghestan (2004, 2006); Georgia (2004-6, 2013); Chechnya and Ingushetia (2006).
I have taught at Columbia University (in the Literature Humanities Program), Yale-NUS College in Singapore (where I helped to develop Singapore’s first liberal arts curriculum), and the University of Bristol, where I was a Reader of Translation Studies and Comparative Literature prior to joining the University of Birmingham as a Professorial Research Fellow.