Most of my work focuses on pre-modern Arabic and Persian literature, both poetry and prose. I have published one book, Patronage and Poetry in the Islamic World: Social Mobility and Status in the Medieval Middle East and Central Asia (I.B. Tauris, 2011) and articles in the Journal of Persianate Studies, Middle Eastern Literatures, the Journal of Arabic Literature, and the Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, as well as a few book chapters that are published or in press, and one translation from Persian to English with Kamran Talattof. I am currently working on a project on material culture and moral value in medieval Arabic literature and beginning another project on poetry and prose about different kinds of relationships in Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish literature. I teach comparative literature, both world literature and literatures of the Islamic World, Arabic, and reading courses in Persian.

Associate Professor, University of California, Davis