-
The Body Remembers the Room
This week, on April 15th, I had the honour of delivering the opening keynote for the Social Safety Week 2026 at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, a programme that understands something many institutions still struggle to name: that social safety is not a decorative value to be displayed at the edges of institutional life, but part…
-
Exception, By Another Name: answering some frequently asked questions about my identity
Today the state writes my name with a borrowed pen. Not the pen kept in velvet for lost inheritance certificates, but a pen found in the bottom of a drawer: a little cracked, ink clotted around the nib, the kind you warm with your breath to make it move. They call it citizenship by an…
-
Ziyafat and Radical Hospitality: Towards an Ethics of Reading Across Border
I have been ruminating on this topic for so long. It is time to stop reading it solely through the lens of an academic researcher and simply release it into the world, because its urgency can no longer wait. This essay examines the influence of Persian poetry on American literature, tracing its path from transcendentalist…
-
The Beauty of Soft Living: Spring Insights
It’s spring again. The city wears green like a second skin, delicate and a little uncertain. Trees push out shy leaves, the wind smells of thawed dreams, and the light, so tentative at first, spills gold onto surfaces that had forgotten how to gleam. Everything is becoming. And maybe—so am I. I’ve been thinking lately…
-
The Graph of a Cry
My dissertation is available as a book for academics, libraries, and those who are interested to read more about the phenomenal journey of the American ghazal. This dissertation analyzes the journey of the ancient Arabic poetic form of the ghazal to America to provide insights into transnational poetry and cultural mobility. While the movement of…
-
Intersectionality and Film at the Filmacademie
Almost every year I get to work with the vibrant students of the Filmacademie. An opportunity that I greatly look forward to as it always leads to powerful conversations in which I get to learn just as much as the students. The diversity and inclusion workshop involves the theory of Intersectionality and unpacking films and…
-
When a poem is written like a telegram addressing a painting…
I am putting it on my agenda to feed the mind everyday with things of beauty, insightful words, and objects that inspire thought. It is an informal resolution for 2020, which so far has gone reasonably well. Recently, I read Sharon Olds’ Poem in the Form of a Telegram to Someone Looking at Henri Rousseau’s…
-
English Pronunciation in a Global World MOOC Great Success
I had posted earlier that our MOOC had completed its second run. We had such an amazing time organizing and running it. It presented us with such great learning opportunities. It gives me immense pleasure that our MOOC – this wonderful, empowering, educational miracle created by Dr. Laura Rupp has created an outstanding record by…
-
Last Controversial? Day in Basel
On our last day in Basel we decided to visit the Kunstmuseum. The museum boasts of the largest and most significant art collection in Switzerland. I can confirm that they indeed have a vast array of artworks, which needs much-much-much more than one day for viewing. The art pieces that stood out for me included…
