As a historian with major teaching fields in the history of medicine, and of both the medieval and modern Middle East, and substantial background and research in cultural linkages, I am prepared to teach a variety of courses on the Middle East/North Africa, as well as broader courses of interest including world history surveys, and courses focused on the Mediterranean littoral, the Silk Route, and the Indian Ocean.

My introductory history of medicine course, Plagues and Pandemics, is a comparative U.S./global class that examines social issues such as racism and homophobia, and the ways that health and disease have been used to delineate social lines.

In teaching, I emphasize the notion of history-as-inquiry, encouraging students to think about not only what we know about the past, but how and why we know it. I prefer to use as many primary texts as possible; an exercise that has proven quite popular involves assembling primary document sets to have students work with in class.

I see my role in the classroom as the facilitator of discussion and inquiry rather than as the gatekeeper of definitive answers. Particularly when it comes to teaching the modern Middle East, my goal is to emphasize the multiplicity of perspectives as well as the complexity of issues rather than emphasize the “correctness” of one over another.

Read more about my teaching philosophy.