Teaching Associate ProfessorFaculty advisor, Pakistani Students’ Association (PakSA)
Professional biography
I was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and I lived in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia before coming to North Carolina in 1996. I studied Hindi-Urdu at the University of Michigan in the late 1980s, and in December 1990 I made my first trip to South Asia. Since then I have traveled to India and Pakistan many times. I began teaching Hindi-Urdu on the UNC Summer in India Study Abroad Program which I have co-directed every summer since 1999. I was on the team that developed the Hindi and Urdu learning websites A Door Into Hindi and Darvazah: A Door Into Urdu. From 1996 until 2009 I also served as Outreach Director of the North Carolina Center for South Asia Studies. I co-host Geet Bazaar, the Triangle’s weekly South Asian radio show, and I play bassoon semi-professionally in the Raleigh and Durham Symphonies and the North Carolina Wind Orchestra.
Research
My research interests include South Asian film and media culture, the music of South Asia, comparative musicology, second language learning and technology, and poetry and poetics.
Courses
ASIA 164: Music of South Asia
HNUR 101: Elementary Hindi-Urdu I
HNUR 102: Elementary Hindi-Urdu II
HNUR 203: Intermediate Hindi-Urdu I
HNUR 204: Intermediate Hindi-Urdu II
HNUR 220: Introduction to the Hindi Script (Devanagari)
HNUR 221: Introduction to the Urdu Script (Nastaliq)
HNUR 305: Advanced Hindi-Urdu I
Publications
“The Movie Mujrā: the Trope of the Courtesan in Urdu-Hindi Film” in Southeast Review of Asian Studies, volume 32 (2010), pp. 120-8.