public scholarship & popular writing
translating research for everyone
popular writing: blogs & magazines
This Egyptian Grain Bowl Is the Pantry Wonder-Dish We Need Right Now, Eater, May 13, 2020.
Couscous: Light Enough to Travel, ArabLit Quarterly, Spring 2020.
Bastila and the Archives of Unwritten Things, The Maydan, November 27, 2019.
Ask Abla Nazira: Nazira Nicola, The Doyenne of Modern Egyptian Cooking. Rawi: Egypt’s Heritage Review, November 2019.
Ideology Never Cooked a Duck: A Recipe for Roast Duck, Egyptian Style, Scribe: The Magazine of the American Research Center in Egypt, Fall 2019.
Medieval Arabic Recipes and the History of Hummus, on The Recipes Project, March 27, 2018.
Seeking Primus Stoves in North Africa, on the Social Science Research Council blog Research Matters, August 1, 2017.
Egypt, Laughter, and the History of Emotions, on the History of Emotions Blog of the Queen Mary Centre for the History of Emotions, March 7, 2016.
Cooking with Naguib Mahfouz, on Arabic Literature (in English), February 29, 2016.
The Recipe as Colonial Archive, series of three blog posts for tajine exploring the recipes of Zette Guinaudeau, a French settler living in protectorate-era Morocco. See installments here, here, and here. 2015-16.
Alert Level, on Medium. August 15, 2014. Drawing the police state.
Translation as Mourning, Translation as a 'Form of Cultural Interrogation,' on Arabic Literature (in English), June 29, 2014.
Apothecary Tales: Pharmacies in Today's Cairo, in Muftah, April 28, 2014.
Boycott Politics (there is no boycotting politics), on Medium. February 5. 2014.
Mediating Morocco, an essay exploring the women that have been pictured on Moroccan postcards since the days of the Protectorate, in [wherever]: an out of place journal. January 2014.
Anthropology and the Peace Corps: Five decades of learning to learn about culture, in WorldView magazine, Spring 2013.
Romance, Not Romanticized: Three Stories of Love and Loss from the Boston Palestine Film Festival, in Jadaliyya, October 24, 2011.
Hope, Translated, review of Laila Lalami’s Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and Tahar Ben Jelloun’s A Palace in the Old Village, in Jadaliyya, August 3, 2011.
From Dance to Transcendence, review of Dunia: Kiss Me Not on the Eyes, in Jadaliyya, June 13, 2011.
public talks and events
Panelist, “Taste of Identity: Cuisine, Performance, and Aesthetics,” Salon Sophie Charlotte, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, January 18, 2020.
“Salt, Fat, Acid, Repeat: Hummus Past & Present,” Middle East Research Group, Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University, October 23, 2019.
“Teaching Happiness: Colonial Education, Gender, and Transnational Currents in Modern Morocco,” Center for the Humanities at Tufts, October 8, 2019.
Organizer, Making Middle Eastern Cuisine, a public program featuring six speakers and a tasting at the Smithsonian’s Freer|Sackler in Washington, DC, June 8, 2019. See video here.
“Food History as a Window on Migration, Displacement, and Cultural Currents in North Africa,” Montgomery College, Rockville, MD, March 21, 2019.
“Ful, Koshari, Bechamel: Culinary Heritage as Counternarrative,” American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt, January 30, 2019.
“Tarikh al-Matbakh fi al-Maghrib wa-Masr” (Kitchen Histories in Egypt and Morocco), Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM), Tangier, Morocco, March 9, 2017 (in Arabic).
“Fat As Congealed History: From Samna to Roux in the Egyptian Kitchen,” Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo, Egypt, November 24, 2016.
“‘Good Food is the Key to the Heart’: Cooking up Happiness in Semi-Colonial Egypt,” American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt, October 26, 2016.
interviews & community engagements
La cuisine marocaine, un mélange de civilisations, traditions et cultures (French) / Moroccan cuisine, a melting pot of peoples and cultures (English), interview on YaBiladi, January 9, 2020.
Interview segment on Shay wa Nana radio show, WPFW Radio, Washington, DC, October 9, 2019.
Food for Thought: A Discussion with Former ARCE Fellow Anny Gaul, interview in Scribe: The Magazine of the American Research Center in Egypt, Fall 2019.
Interview segment on Shay wa Nana radio show, WPFW Radio, Washington, DC, October 9, 2019.
The Cuisine of Tetouan, podcast recorded at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Maghrib Studies, Tangier, Morocco, October 24, 2018.
Cooking with the Benalis: a recipe for makouda, airy potato croquettes, NRC Handelsblad, the Netherlands, August 17, 2018.
Kitchen Tales from Egypt and Morocco, interview segment on Late Night Live, Radio National Australia, February 8, 2018.
Community Partner, Geographies of the Middle East course, University of British Columbia. Created and supervised production of a group blog on food and travel writing in North Africa, Fall 2017.
Speaker and classroom correspondent, Myers Park High School, Charlotte, NC, Peace Corps Coverdell World Wise Schools Program (ongoing throughout 2008-2010) and at Harriet Tubman Elementary, Washington, DC (February 2018).
Speaker, African and American Women’s Association, outreach program through the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, November 13, 2010.