Research

My research interests are in 20th - 21st century poetry, and the relationship of its 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 "Projects" for more).

Beyond these studies of New York School art and poetry, I have several interrelated projects currently underway, including an app which functions as a digital archive of the literature of place, a collection 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). 

After leaving Oxford (where I was a Lecturer in English at Brasenose and St Catherine's Colleges), I was appointed Assistant Professor of American Literature at Wilkes Honors College--Florida Atlantic University's small liberal arts honors college--where I developed and managed curriculum in American Literature, Creative Writing and the Digital Humanities, while teaching the entire American literature canon, and supervising theses on topics related to American literature, poetry at large, and the digital humanities.

I am currently COFUND Junior Research Fellow in English at Durham University, where I am completing my second major book project, on what "home" means to refugees.