Teaching statement: While I certainly have a great deal of personal interest in the Middle East, it is both impossible and unwise to study this region in isolation from the rest of the world. Thus my classes are designed to explore and reveal the many interlocking relationships between multiple regions in the world, especially in the modern period. Regardless of the content of any particular class, perhaps an even more important goal is for students to leave my classes with stronger analytical skills. In this regard I intend for students to critically assess a wide variety of thinkers, ideologies, literatures and historical processes. Doing so requires intense focus on texts and their historical contexts, how they were constructed, their intended audiences, as well as language and style choices. These types of analytical skills transcend any given topic and field and will prove useful well beyond my classes and college itself.
My research is informed by both my Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies training and interest in global phenomena. My academic specialization is in the socioeconomic and political history of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, and their role in the political economic and cultural networks of the Indian Ocean and Central Asia. My other areas of specialization are sociocultural dynamics in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Islamist movements, and Islamic and Arabic literature. Secondary interests have included work on late Ottoman history (especially in the Arabian Peninsula), European imperialism, medieval European society and literature, and the depiction of the Middle East in popular culture and media.
My focus on global and critical curriculum has extended into secondary education, including years of directing the annual Kevorkian Center Summer Institute for K-12 Teachers, as well as teaching graduate courses on how to teach the Middle East and Islam in high school for the Social Studies Education program in NYU Steinhardt, and participating in various pedagogy workshops at NYU and high schools in the NY-NJ metro area.
Finally, in addition to my academic work and publications, I have worked in a variety of editorial, media, and consulting positions, including work for the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, and World Press Review.