Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures

My research project explores the artistic and cultural manifestations in which contemporary Muslim women define their body space to defy internal, traditional restrictions and external, orientalist Western gazes.

It might seem odd that the poet who once penned the most imitated Arabic poem of all times is largely unstudied, if recognizable at all, in the western academy.

There are oceans of writing in Urdu and Persian that have not been translated into other languages.

The MESALC Spring Symposium Envisioning 21st Century Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies( April 6 & 7, 2018) looks to define the contours of possibility for revitalized Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies.

Beginning in 2006, with the Jaipur Literature Festival, there has been an urgency to host literature festivals in all the major cities of India and Pakistan.