Teaching

Fundamentally, I ask students to consider multiple ways of understanding, doing, and imagining. I love when the light bulb goes on.

My undergraduate and graduate teaching is driven by a commitment to rigorous intellectual inquiry, creative thinking, and public relevance.

I was awarded Northwestern’s Ver Steeg Award for Outstanding Faculty Graduate Member, have been named to the Northwestern Associated Student Government Faculty Honor Roll three times, and have been named an outstanding mentor by the Anthropology Graduate Student Association at NU. I am honored to serve on many graduate student committees. I am very proud of my former and current advisees and all of their accomplishments: Brooke Bocast, Elizabeth Derderian, Nazlı Özkan, Aydin Özipek, Foroogh Farhang, Sindhunata Hargyono, Kyle Craig, Mariam Taher, Mounica Sreesai, and Faraz Saberi.

I am a Board Member of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative at the Arab Studies Institute, and a co-author of the original “Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility after 9/11: A Handbook for Scholars and Teachers.”