I am an independent scholar and educator. I am currently working on my book manuscript, “The Ecstasy and Anarchy of Nonviolence: The Intersectionality of Khudai Khidmatgar Resistance in the North-West Frontier of British India.” This book focuses on the vernacular literature of a very popular, Muslim nonviolent movement of 1930’s British India. I especially look at the women’s resistance literature and, using an intersectional feminist and decolonial lens, I illustrate how they articulated the key factors for nonviolent transformation.

I received my doctoral degree from the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, where I also taught classes on the literatures of nonviolence. I continue to teach on this topic—please check the Teaching section for more details.

And I earned my undergraduate education from Columbia University in New York City, majoring in Philosophy. My educational trajectory has been a very nontraditional one: my son and I studied for our undergraduate degree at the same time. Prior to that, I was an Interior Designer specializing in commercial and restaurant design.

I am a board member of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, Petaluma California, as well as the Soul Force Project, Los Angeles.