Core Faculty

As a scholar of Arabic literature, I have engaged with an unusually diverse range of topics, from the poetics of rumor and conspiracy theory in postcolonial Egyptian theater, to the sociolinguistics of "mock languages" in modern Tunisian performance genres, and, most recently, the Judeo-Arabic print literature of the Maghreb. Running through all of my projects has been an enduring fascination with the diversity of linguistic varieties and registers that constitute the Arabic language family, and above all, what "vernacularity" means in an Arabic context.

At present, I am writing two books on the history of vernacular Arabic literature in North Africa. The first is an anthology of texts, tentatively titled "The Judeo-Arabic Journalism of Tunisia and Tripolitania: Transcriptions, Translations, and Commentaries."  The second book, tentatively titled "Tunisian's Vernacular Century," examines the intersections between Jewish (Judeo-Arabic) and Muslim print culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

I have translated three books: Hussein Nassereddine's How to see the palace pillars as if they were palm trees (2024); Using Life (2017; Istikhdam al-Haya, 2014), written by Ahmed Naji and illustrated by Ayman Al Zorkany; and the pseudo-anonymous gothic livre de colportage, 'Amaliyyat Qurun al-Nahs al-A'zam.

My creative and critical works have appeared in Akhbar al-Adab, Arabica, Banipal, Isdar Mustaqel, Jadaliyya, the Journal of Arabic Literature, Mada Masr, Ma3azef, Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Rusted Radishes, The New Inquiry, and Wasla.

I am also an amateur bookmaker and paper marbler.  My first chapbook, Qatatis Bikri ("Cats of Yore"),  assembles a speculative archive of ephemera about cats, poetry, time travel, and Tunisia.