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| Educational background |
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1996.08-2000.05, Haverford College, USA, B.A. in English Lit/Religion 2000.08-2002.05, Harvard University, USA, M.A. in Near Eastern Studies 2008.08-2018.05, New York University, PhD in Middle Eastern Studies |
Prior employment |
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2003.06-2005.06 Asia Society, Associate, Teach Asia program 2005.06-2008.08, Columbia University, Assistant Director, South Asia Institute 2015.08-2020.05, New School University, Adjunct Assistant Professor 2020.08-2021.12, New York University, Assistant Professor |
| Profile |
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Zainab earned her MA from Harvard University's Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department, and her PhD in Arabic and Persian Literature from NYU's Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies department. She has served as Assistant Director of the South Asia Institute at Columbia University.
Zainab is a scholar of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu literary sources. She focuses on the exegetical, philosophical, poetic, mystical and travel writing produced and circulated in pre-modern Islamic centers of knowledge. She regards the pre-modern Islamic world as multilingual and multicultural, producing a thriving book culture that prized literary exchanges across genre, geographic and linguistic lines. She is particularly interested in the points of contact produced by this culture of circulation, and how these texts continue to be received in increasingly global, colonial and post-colonial contexts. Zainab also focuses on British and American Muslim cultural and literary expression in English writing, and the effects of colonialism on Muslim experiences and expression. |
Proposed Collaborations |
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Video Gaming Culture and Pre-Modern Literature; Silk Road Encounters; China-Pakistan Literary/Historic Relations; Anglophone South Asian Writing |