peer-reviewed articles & chapters

“Classical Arabic Poetry“
Oxford Bibliographies, open access scholarly resource (published online August 2026)

“As Barren as Mother Eve: Why Poems End Badly, According to Premodern Arabic Critics“
Al-Abhath: Journal of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, American University of Beirut (Autumn 2023)

“Self-Commentary as Defensive Strategy in the Works of John Tzetzes (d. 1180 CE)
and Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (d. 1057 CE)” (co-authored with Aglae Pizzone)
Philological Encounters (August 2022)

“Al-Ma`arri’s Anxious Menagerie: The Epistle of the Horse and the Mule“
Journal of `Abbasid Studies, special issue: Animals, Adab, and Fictivity (June 2021)

“Suffering the Sons of Eve: Animal Ethics in al-Ma`arri’s The Horse and the Mule“
Religions, special issue: Animals in Islam (October 2020)

“Giggers, Greeners, Peyserts, & Palliards: Rendering Slang in al-Bukhala’ of al-Jahiz“
Journal of the American Oriental Society (March 2020)

“Missionary and Heretic: Debating Veganism in the Medieval Islamic World“
Insatiable Appetite: Food as a Cultural Signifier in the Middle East and Beyond (Brill, 2019)

“Al-Ma`arri’s Esteem in the Islamic West: A Preliminary Overview“
Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean (February 2019)

lectures & conference papers

“Debating Veganism in the Medieval Islamic World: al-Maʿarrī and al-Shīrāzī“
Monday Majlis Series, University of Exeter, 11 November 2024

“Don’t Hasten the Knife: Animal Ethics in Classical Arabic Literature“
Invited solo lecture, University of Chicago, 17 January 2024

“Love, Fear, Anger, Sorry: Diseases of the Soul in ‘Islamicate’ Literatures“
Invited solo lecture, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, 4 December 2023

“The 1,001 Arabian Nights: Talking Fish, Drugged Polo Sticks, and Other Serious Matters“
Taylorsville, UT Public Library Adult Lecture Series, 4 May 2021

“كِتابٌ كوَشْيِ الرَّوْضِ: الخَطِّ رمزاً بلاغياً في الشِعْرِ العَرَبيِّ القَديمِ (A Book like a Painted Garden: Script
as Rhetorical Symbol in Classical Arabic Poetry” (talk in Arabic)
International Symposium on Arabic Script, Saudi Arabia Ministry of Culture
and the Adab Foundation, 21 April 2021

“Counted Among the Dead: Pious Self-detachment (zuhd) in Medieval Islamic Thought and Literature“
University of Southern Denmark (SDU), 13 April 2021

“Careers in Literary Translation,” University of Chicago, Center for
Middle East Studies (CMES), 16 October 2020

“Al-Hayawan fi l-Mizan: Risalat al-saahil wa-l-shaahij“ [Animals in the Balance: The Epistle of the Horse and the Mule] (lecture in Arabic)
University of Chicago, Center for Middle East Studies, April 2020

“Spark Showers Way Out West: Forging an Author Through
Self-Commentary in Andalusi Arabic Poetry”
University of Pennsylvania, Department of Hispanic & Portuguese Studies,
20 November 2019

“Banu Sasan: A Medieval Arab Underworld Society“
Medieval Association of the Midwest, 3-5 October 2019

“Al-Ma`arri’s Anxious Menagerie: The Epistle of the Horse and the Mule“
Freie Universität Berlin, 9-10 May 2019

“Dust’s Embrace: Al-Ma`arri and the Art of Dying in Classical Arabic Literature“
Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, Washington D.C., 3 April 2019 (on YouTube)

“The Mediterranean and the Dream of Comparative Literature“
English Language Notes 56, issue 1 (2018): 263-267

grants, fellowships & awards

Columbia University Subvention Grant ($3,000) (principal investigator)
-Funding for publication costs (copyediting, indexing) of single-author book.
-Awarded in 2026 by the Warner Fund to guest speakers, University Seminars at Columbia University
-Book project: Steal No More from Nature: Al-Ma`arri and Animal Ethics in Medieval Arabic Literature

University of Oxford, St. John’s College “Welcome Grant” ($20,000) (associate investigator)
-Two-year funding for conference, edited volume, website on classical Arabic poetry
-Project: A Practical Guide to Classical Arabic Poetry: Tools for Understanding Form and Meaning, Art and Function
(co-authored with Tahera Qutbuddin (principal investigator) and Nathaniel A. Miller)

Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF) Project 1 Grant ($433,000) (associate investigator)
-Three-year funding with Aglae Pizzone (principal investigator) and Lars Mortensen (director, Centre for Medieval Studies,
Southern Denmark University).
-Project: “Medieval Self-Commentaries Beyond Europe: A Transcultural Perspective“]

American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS), Research Grant ($2,250) (principal investigator)
-Short-term funding to conduct archive research in Tunisia, fall 2019
-Project East-West reception of classical Arabic literature

Southern Denmark University, HUM SEED Research Grant ($12,750) (associate investigator)
-Short-term collaborative grant at USD’s Center for Medieval Literature
-Project: Medieval Self-Commentary East and West; see 2017 CML report, page 2

Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award (DDRA) ($33,500)(principal investigator)
-Full-year doctoral research grant to Morocco
-Project: The legacy a medieval Syrian poet in Spain and North Africa; see 2015 Fulbright-Hays report, page 10