Academic Research

peer-reviewed articles & chapters

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)

Classical Arabic Poetry
Oxford Bibliographies, open access scholarly resource (Autumn 2021)

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

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

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

American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS), Research Grant ($2,250)
[Short-term funding to conduct archive research in Tunisia, fall 2019, for an ongoing project about East-West reception of classical Arabic literature]

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

Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award (DDRA) ($33,500)
[Full-year grant to Morocco, for a project on the reception of a medieval Syrian poet in Spain and North Africa; see 2015 Fulbright-Hays report, page 10]