Faculty Member, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies
About
My main areas of interest are orality, literacy and popular culture across the Middle East and especially amongst the Kurds. Much of my written work has focused on the Yezidis, a Kurdish religious minority. I am currently preparing a book on discourses of memory in Kurdish communities. I also have a strong interest in the literary and cultural history of the Kurds of the former Soviet Union.
After a BA degree in Classics and French at Magdalen College, Oxford, I studied Kurdish at SOAS. My Ph.D thesis on oral traditions amongst the Yezidis of Iraq was submitted in 1996, and followed by a British Academy postdoctoral fellowship at SOAS (1997-2001). I was then tenured lecturer (maître de conférences) in Kurdish at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), Paris, before taking up the post of Ibrahim Ahmed professor of Kurdish studies in Exeter's new Centre of Kurdish studies in 2007.
Contact Information
| Address: | IAIS
|
