Research

As a literary scholar, I am interested in the shapes of contemporary forms. Whether reading a contemporary American poem, an interview with a Syrian refugee, a book review online, or a recent feminist prose work, I tend to ask questions about the shapes of these responses to contemporary pressures.

I engage with students and, lately, with more public audiences through both print and digital media, and am the creator and curator of two digital projects. My published work treats the relationship of forms to local, pastoral, and built environments attending to the ways in which the spaces we inhabit are registered in the spaces we create.

My first book, Spatial Poetics: Second Generation New York School Poetry (OUP, 2018), showcases the ways in which aesthetic constructions are shaped by the environments from which they are composed. My second book, Joe Brainard's Art (EUP, 2019), is an edited collection which zooms in to treat the poetry and art of avant-garde collage artist, miniature artist, and painter, Joe Brainard more specifically and comprehensively ​(please see "New/Now" for more).  While I remain engaged in studies and activities related to the New York School, I am also presently engaged with the contemporary crises of migration.

My work on migration has led to several interrelated projects currently underway, including a digital archive offering a map of migration, funded by the British Academy,  a poetry app which functions as a digital archive of the literature of place, two collections of interviews, and an emerging book project offering narratives of home and displacement from refugees living throughout the Middle East.

Though varying in scope and focus, these projects all share an interest in articulating the ways in which the shapes of the constructions we live within shape our perceptions of our world. 

 

Work

I earned my DPhil in English Literature from the University of Oxford, my MA with High Distinction in English Literature from Georgetown University, and my BA with Distinction in English Literature and Political Studies from the American University of Beirut (having transferred from Boston University). Interspersing this chronicle of educational endeavors, I held a variety of positions throughout the East coast of the USA, the Middle East, and the UK, working as a researcher (always), a writer and editor (often), an educator (sometimes), and an events organizer (once or twice). 

I have taught at Brasenose College, Oxford, St. Catherine's College, Oxford, and the Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University. Most recently, my work on the refugee's sense of "home," was generously supported by Durham University's COFUND Junior Research Fellowship in English, and by a British Academy Grant ("Tackling the UKs International Challenges"), awarded in 2019.
I am Lecturer of Literature in English at the University of Reading.