My research centers around religion in North Africa and the Middle East with a focus on Islam; I approach the study of Islam through its representation in visual culture. My first book project, an outgrowth of my dissertation, focuses on recent fiction film by Moroccan women filmmakers as oblique forms of resistance to dominant narratives about Muslim women. My research tends to be very interdisciplinary: I draw on religion, cultural studies, feminist theory, film theory and affect theory. I hope that, in doing so, I can help introduce diversity into conversations about Islam, particularly the ways we respond to representations of Muslim women. 

In the classroom, I enjoy reading and thinking about canonical texts and then unsettling the ideas they introduce by reading extra-canonical writers and thinkers. In so doing, I hope to work with students to collectively unsettle some of the deep-seated ideas we all bring into the classroom about religion and geography, gender and ethnicity.