Department of English at the University of Virginia

Interests

My research and teaching interests include Postcolonial and Anglophone World Literatures (Arab, African, Caribbean, South Asian); Critical Theory with Special Emphasis on Marxism; Cultural Studies; Queer and Feminist Theory; Third World Visual/Film Studies

Books

Managing Modernities: Postcolonial Collectives in Twentieth Century Anglophone Literature examines the social, political and literary intersections of modernity, sexuality and collectivism in postcolonial film and literature from South Asia and the Middle East (in progress).

Articles

• "Disciplinary Intertexts: Arab Women’s Fiction and the Frames of Activism in Literature, History, Politics” in Interdisciplinarity and Social Justice. Ranu Samantrai and Joe Parker, editors. (SUNY Press, forthcoming).
• “(In)human Bondage: Modernity and the Dirty Politics of Transnationalism,” with Leila Neti in differences: The Future of the Human, Special Issue, Nancy Armstrong and Warren Montag, editors (Duke University Press, forthcoming).
• “Never Kill A Man Who Says Nothing: Centers and Margins of Orality and the work of Chinua Achebe” (under review).
• “To Undo What the North has Done: Fragments of a Nation and Arab Collectivism in the Fiction of Ahdaf Soueif” in Exploring Identity: Readings in Contemporary Arab Women’s Autobiographical Writings. Nawar Al-Hassan Golley, editor (Syracuse University Press, October 2007).
• “Hegel – Marx: The “Other” Logic of Unproductive Labor” in Bad Subjects (Issue 66, “Marx and Theory,” February 2004).

Lectures and Presentations

• “Postcolonial Inheritance and the Question of Psychoanalysis,” University of California Interdisciplinary Psychoanalytic Consortium, Lake Arrowhead Conference Center, California. May 2007. Invited lecture.
• “Death, Debt, and the Dirty Politics of Diaspora: Concerning Arab Sovereignty in the West,” for Seminar, “(Neo) Orientalisms: Representing the Middle East,” Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association. April 18-22, 2007, Puebla, Mexico, Presenter and Seminar Chair. 
• “Seasons of Modernity: Some Comments on Tayeb Salih’s Fictions of Diaspora,” Occidental College, Los Angeles, Guest Speaker. February 2007.
• Feminist Theory Conference, Duke University, Workshop Participant. March 2007.
• “Introducing Devi,” Presenter, Virginia Film Festival, University of Virginia. October 2006.
• Introductions to A Certain Liberation, and City of Photos, Traveling Film South Asia, University of Virginia. November 2006.
• “Disciplinary Intertexts: Arab Women’s Fiction and the Frames of Arab Collectivism in Literature, History, Politics.” Presented at “Interdisciplinarity and Social Justice: Revisioning Academic Accountability,” Pitzer College, Claremont, California. February 2005. Invited.
• “To Understand Me, You’ll Have to Swallow a World: South Asian Multitudes in the Fiction of Salman Rushdie.” Special Session entitled “Hybridity’s Children” at the Modern Language Association Conference, Philadelphia. December 2004. 
• “When I Think of Edward Said:  Reading Exile.”  Presented at “Edward Said and His Legacy,” Critical Theory Institute, University of California, Irvine.  October 2003. Invited.
  
• “Ingesting History:  The Problem of Colonial Education in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions,” University of California Conference on Literature and History, Irvine.  March 2002. 
• “And Time For Play: Labor, Leisure and Insurgent Afro-Caribbean Social Practices.” (Dis)Junctions at University of California, Riverside.  April 2001. 
• “The Hanky and the Purse:  Fetishism and the Emergence of Capitalist Motives in Othello.”  Rethinking Marxism, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  September 2000.
• “The Body in Exile: Economies of Sexuality and Cultural Contact in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy.”Presented at “The Body Eclectic,” Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.  February 1999. Panel Chair.