Research

Overview

I work on the comparative study of narrative in the Middle East within the rough temporal parameter of Late Antiquity to the Early Modern period (ca. 500–1500 CE). Alongside Persian, my primary area of expertise, I examine texts in Arabic, Greek, Georgian, and the languages of western Europe (Latinate and Germanic) to further our understanding of how these various literary traditions interacted with one another and their respective audiences. My current research is dedicated to the genres of epic and romance (and various admixtures of the two): how do we—can we—define such genres, and what insights do these definitions afford us? I have turned to these texts to ask questions about composition and performance, subjectivity and morality, gender and society, and cross-cultural intertextuality. I believe the Persian texts are an important source that helps us see how matters of selfhood and subjectivity were interrogated via a literary mode that gained wide currency across a wide range of courtly cultures in the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE.

Beyond this focus, I am also interested in the art and literature of modern Iran and its neighbors; this includes comparative studies of neoclassical poetry, the free-verse movement, cinema, literary history, and the novel, novella, and short story forms in the last century in both Persian and Arabic. Topics that I find myself turning to repeatedly in this field include the representation, performance, and politics of gender, translation studies and world literature, allusions to the classical past, aesthetics, and stylistics.

Major works

My first monograph, Love at a Crux: The New Persian Romance in a Global Middle Ages, investigates the emergence of the ‘romance’ as a literary genre and the idea of ‘romantic love’ as an ethical praxis within this generic tradition, tracing how the interplay of these two branches produces a work that raises deep existential challenges for the individual subject through the problematization of classic topoi like female chastity, male sovereignty, and sacrifice and redemption in the name of love.

Current Projects

Alongside this monograph, I am working on a number of articles that touch on the following topics: the ‘rise of the romance’ in Persian, Greek, and European literature; the implications of Alexander’s quest for immortality; love and holy war in Floire & Blancheflor and Varqa & Golshah; speech, silence, and symbols in Nezami’s Haft Paykar; and monsters and the monstrous in the works of Iranshah b. Abi’l-khayr. I’m also chipping away at a number of translations, including ‘Ayyuqi’s Varqa & Golshah and a few works of contemporary prose and poetry.

List of Publications

Monographs

  • Love at a Crux: The New Persian Romance in a Global Middle Ages. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023. (download)

Journal Articles

  • “Poetic Alchemy: The Rise of Persian Romance in a Comparative Context.” Medieval Encounters, forthcoming.
  • “The Lives and Afterlives of Vis and Rāmin.” Iranian Studies 51, no. 4 (2018): 517–56. DOI: 10.1080/00210862.2018.1440967.
  • “A Tree Atop the Mountain: Mobad Manikan and the Elusive Promises of Masculinity.” Iran Namag 3, no. 1 (2018): xxvi–lxiii. (link) (pdf)
  • “The Many Colors of Love in Niẓāmī’s Haft Paykar: Beyond the Spectrum.” Interfaces 2 (2016): 52–96. DOI: 10.13130/interfaces-7663.
  • “ ‘If Death Is Just, What Is Injustice?’ Illicit Rage in ‘Rostam and Sohrab’ and ‘The Knight’s Tale’.” Iranian Studies 48, no. 3 (2015): 395–422. DOI: 10.1080/00210862.2014.1000620.

Translations

  • “From Qazvin to Tus: A Personal Memoir,” by Mohammad-Jafar Yahaghi. Iranian Studies 52 nos. 5–6 (2019): 1041–44. DOI: 10.1080/00210862.2019.1654279.
  • “Athena,” by Maryam Hooleh. Absinthe 24 (2018): 23–26. (link)
  • “House of Flesh,” by Yousef Idris, self-published (2013). (link)

For ‘unofficial’ and self-published work, see my translations page.

Reviews

  • Beholding Beauty: Saʿdi of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry, by Domenico Ingenito. Journal of the American Oriental Society (forthcoming).
  • The Layered Heart: A Celebration in Honor of Dick Davis, edited by A. A. Seyed-Ghorab. Journal of the American Oriental Society 141, no. 3 (2021): 728–731. DOI: 10.7817/jaos.141.3.2021.rev060.