Research

I am a reader and teacher of poetry, and a researcher, writer, and editor with interests in the ways in which the spaces we inhabit are registered in the spaces we create.

My work tends to treat the relationship of poetry's forms to local, pastoral, and built environments. 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).

Beyond these studies of New York School art and poetry, I have 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.