I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at UCLA, writing a dissertation on digital magazines, archives, and the contemporary emergence of kwīr in Arabic. I also work as a translator from Arabic to English and consultant in instructional technology and design, digital research in the humanities, and cultural representation.

Education

  • C.Phil., UCLA (2019)
  • B.A., California State University, Long Beach (2011)

Research

  • zines
  • Queer theory
  • ephemeral literatures
  • digital humanities

Current Courses

  • Postcolonial Literature with writing component (COM LIT 4DW)
  • Alf Layla wa-Layla / One Thousand and One Nights (COM LIT M110 / ARABIC M110)
  • Literature of al-Andalus / Islamic Spain (COM LIT M119 / ARABIC M115)
  • Social Media and Storytelling (COM LIT 1E)

Field of Interest

Gender and sexuality studies, area studies, cultural studies, anthropology, translation

Languages

Arabic

Selected Publications

  • “Mahfouz, al-Mutanabbi, and the Canon: Poetics of Deviance in the Masculine Nationalist Discourse of Al-Sukkariyya,” in Constructions of Masculinity in the Middle East and North Africa: Literature, Film, and National Discourse, eds. Mohja Kahf and Nadine Sinno. The American University in Cairo Press, 2021, pp. 103-19.
  • “Phantom Limbs: Socio-Psychic Contours of the Maimed Body in ‘I used to Count my Friends on my Fingers’,” essay in Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, vol. 13, no. 1, March 2019.
  • “Getting to Abu Nuwas Street,” translation of short story by Dheya al-Khalidi in Baghdad Noir, edited by Samuel Shimon, Akashic Books, August 2018, pp. 209-20.

Dissertation Title

Cyber-Orientalisms and the Counterpublic Record: Arabic Digital Archives of Sexual Rights after the 2011 Uprisings