ABOUT ME

My research explores how ordinary people navigate extraordinary historical moments—particularly in the modern Middle East and North Africa, where the legacies of colonialism, war, and decolonization continue to shape our world today.

My first book, Globalizing Morocco: Transnational Activism and the Postcolonial State, tells the remarkable story of how Moroccan nationalists took their fight against French and Spanish colonial rule global, building networks from New York to Cairo to win independence in 1956. This was not just about one country's struggle—it shows how activists from the Global South helped create the international order we know today. The book reveals how these transnational campaigns then shaped domestic politics in newly independent Morocco, offering insights into the complex relationship between international activism and nation-building. You can hear me discuss this research in interviews with the New Books Network and Jadaliyya.

This research on transnational networks led me to my current project: understanding how World War II transformed North Africa from 1939 to 1945. Rather than studying Muslims, Jews, and European settlers separately, I analyze their interconnected experiences throughout the war years. This approach reveals how the conflict created both shared experiences and deepening divisions that ultimately accelerated the region's path to decolonization. It is a story about how global conflicts play out in local contexts—and how those local experiences, in turn, reshape the broader world.

I am currently a Humboldt Fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.