I am a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University and a Dissertation Fellow at the Roberta Buffet Institute for Global Affairs. I did my M.A. in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University as a Fulbright Scholar.
My research explores the intersection of international relations and emotions. I aim to understand sovereignty as a ‘felt relationship’, foregrounding the affective dimensions of the concept. In my article in Millennium, I referred to this developing research agenda as the study of the ‘affective economies of sovereignty.’ Sovereignty is a mode of organizing power in the modern world, and an imagination of how power can and should be organized, what power is, and what it means to feel powerful or powerless. In my research, I analyze the affective economies of sovereignty to make sense of international politics. My dissertation and book project, Melodramatic Nations and Serious States, explore these questions in the context of the Pakistan-U.S. relationship.
In my teaching, I focus on understanding international relations from the perspective of different countries and focusing on real-world political issues. As Instructor of Record at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, I taught my students about the interplay between emotions and global politics. As a teaching assistant, I have taught courses in internatinoal relations and comparative politics. I am interested in teaching students about international relations, security, foreign policy, politics of emotions, interpretive methods, conflict resolution, and South Asia.