Position Title
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern/South Asian Studies
Bita Daryabari Presidential Chair in Persian Language and Literature
Education and Degree(s)
- Ph.D., Princeton University
- M.F.A., New York University
- B.A., Pomona College
Profile
I was trained at Princeton University as a Persianist and comparatist, and spent the first decade of my academic career at the American University in Cairo (AUC) during a particularly turbulent period in Egypt's history. Living and teaching in Cairo deepened my long-standing interests in the Arab literary tradition and its connections not only to Persian but to other world literatures; however, my research remains primarily focused on Persianate contexts. Since returning to the US to teach at UC Davis in 2017, I have expanded the curriculum and programming in Persian language and literature, and built on existing connections to the Persophone communities of northern California. In 2020, I launched a podcast called "The Story of Iran" as a venue for sharing stories about Iran and the Persianate world through the lens of objects--large and small--that express aspects of this world's history and identities. You can listen to the podcast here: https://complit.ucdavis.edu/the-story-of-iran
My first book, Burying the Beloved: Realism and Reform in Modern Iran (Stanford University Press), examines how the discourses of civil law and prose fiction developed coevally and contributed to the reification of controversial gender norms in twentieth-century Iran. I am currently working on two book projects: the first, Invisible Men: A Cultural History of Racial Thinking and Blackness in and about Modern Iran, critically examines the cultural history of Blackness in Iran and the Iranian diaspora through literature and cinema; the second project is a consideration of Persian language and literature in world literary and cultural circuits.
I am an affiliated faculty member with the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives in the Social Sciences and Humanities at UC Davis and a member of the Diversity Scholars Network.
Selected Publications
Books
Burying the Beloved: Marriage, Fiction and Reform in Modern Iran. Stanford University Press, 2012.
Selected Articles and Book Chapters
“The Purloined Letter: Revisiting Simin Daneshvar’s Translation of The Scarlet Letter and its Critics.” Iran and World Literature, ed. by Mostafa Abedinifard, Omid Azadibougar, and Amirhossein Vafa. Bloomsbury Press, 2021.
“'Now It's Your Turn to See': Jafar Panahi’s Cinematic Intervention in Human Rights Discourse.” Performing Iran: Cultural Identity and Theatrical Performance, ed. by Babak Rahimi. I.B. Tauris, 2021.
“Translating Race: Simin Daneshvar’s Negotiation of Blackness.” Iran Namag 5.3 (2020):46-66.
“Black Light, White Revolution: Translation, Adaptation, and Appropriation in Galway Kinnell’s Cold War Writings on Iran.” Comparative American Studies 13.4 (2015): 220-235.
“What Kind of Crisis? Marriage and Masculinity in Contemporary Iranian Cinema.” Domestic Tensions, National Anxieties: Global Perspectives on Marriage Crisis. Oxford University Press. Ed. by Kristin Celello and Hanan Kholoussy, 2015.
“Autobiography and Authority in the Writings of the Iranian Diaspora.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (CSSAAME) 31.2 (2011): 411-424.
“Toward a Theory of Iranian American Life Writing.” Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States (MELUS) 33.2 (2008): 17-36.
Translations
"The First Day" by Goli Taraghi. World Literature Today. Nov-Dec 2018.
The Space Between Us by Zoya Pirzad. OneWorld Press, 2014.
Special Journal Issue
Guest Editor, New Paradigms in the Study of Middle Eastern Literatures (Alif 35: 2015).