My teaching interests are in the global history of architecture, modern and contemporary architecture, urbanism, and camp histories. In addition to topical interests topical interest in urban informality, urbanization in the Global South, Islamic architecture, the history and historiography of Arab and Muslim cities, and research methods in architecture and urban studies. My teaching is theoretically grounded in postcolonial theory, critical legal studies, critical refugee studies, urban studies, and the everyday.
A Global History of Camps: 19th century to the Present (Fall 2023)
This course looks into the seemingly ahistorical camp from a global historical perspective. It will trace a genealogy of camps that begins with late 19th century plague and famine camps in British colonies, concentration camps in colonial settings such as Cuba, South Africa, and the Philippines and in the genocide of the Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Then looks at how the camp diffused across the world reaching China, Japan, and Palestine, before returning to the West in more violent and brutal forms: Nazi death camps, Soviet Gulag, and Japanese internment camps in Canada and the United States. This course will conclude with contemporary refugee and migrant detention camps in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the US. We will look at—and sometimes fabricate—architectural plans, maps, and archival images alongside reading the works of political theorists, historians, anthropologists, architects, and journalists who have attempted to historicize and theorize the camp.
Concentration camp, Batangas, the Philippines, circa 1901. Image courtesy of University of Michigan Digital Library Collection.
Global Modern & Contemporary Architecture (Spring 2024)
The canonical history of modern and contemporary architecture typically charts the rise and fall of architectural modernism in Europe and the United States. This course challenges this canon by showcasing how architects, urban planners, academics, and everyday people have theorized, negotiated, and hybridized modernity across the globe from the 19th century to the present. This course begins by critically probing Western-centric representations of ‘non-Western’ architecture and urbanism. Then, moves to global perspectives on and struggles for/against modernity, colonialization, decolonization, nationalism, development, globalization, neoliberalism, and sustainability. This class is not a critique of the European “master narrative” but a critique of exclusionary visions that the idea of a central and singular modernism, as opposed to a lesser, derivative extension, presents.
Banister Fletcher, “Tree of Architecture,” in A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method (New York and London, 1924), p. iii.
Methods of Inquiry in Architecture Studies (Spring 2024)
This seminar draws from different methods across the humanities, social sciences, and environmental design to explore the range of research methods that can be used in architecture studies and architectural history. As we work through the semester, students will do assigned readings that provide an overview of intellectual debates and methodological approaches for architectural research, including humanist, ethnographic, archival, oral historical, urban, environmental, postcolonial, forensic, photographic, and virtual. Throughout, students will work on a set of exercises specifically created to expose them to different kinds of methods
Tabula Rogeriana. Map by Muhammad Al-Idrisi Map.1154
Other Courses Taught
UC Berkeley (Graduate Student Instructor, 2017-2021)
An Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism: Pre-History to the Renaissance
An Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism from 1500 to the Present
Design & Activism
German Jordanian University (Full-time Lecturer, 2012-2016)
Understanding the Built Environment
History and Theory of Modern and Contemporary Architecture
Architecture Design Studio
Urban Design Studio
Fundamentals of Design Studio
University of Jordan (Part-time Lecturer, Fall 2011)
History of City Planning
Urban Planning Studio