My lifelong objective as an educator is to create a space wherein students feel empowered to bring their multiple selves into the classroom. The outcome I seek is for them to approach academic subjects not only with intellectual rigor and nuance but also with humor and compassion.
I do not shy away from displaying the many sides of my personality and sharing my divided investment in scholarly research, refugee rights advocacy, and traveling. I have been teaching since 2005: Persian as a heritage language at the Iranian School of San Diego (2005-2010), English as a second language in Mexico (2010-11), Persian language and literature and Academic Reading and Writing at U.C. Berkeley (2014-2019), and now at the University of Washington in Seattle (2019-Present).
In designing my courses, I try to place equal emphasis on specificity – derived from the analysis of text and its contexts – and broader theoretical frameworks that connect our analysis to contemporary issues and questions. For instance, when reading a premodern travelogue, I guide students to illuminate (and blur when necessary) the ways in which the narrative conceptualizes notions of movement, territory, civility, or any other question that my students find pertinent and compelling. Then using our analysis of the text, we ask broader questions about how it challenges our modern understanding of “literature” and “historiography” as bounded categories, purportedly separate from one another.
In addition to academic teaching, I really enjoy designing courses and lecturing for the broader public. In May 2018, I gave a lecture about my research at UCLA to a mixed audience of academics and members of the Iranian community. In spring 2019, I designed and taught a course titled “Global Routes of Travel Writing” at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum. In 2020, I engaged the Iranian-American community of San Diego in conversation about the history of the field of Iranian Studies. I hope to continue lecturing for and engaging the broader public.