Biography

I was born in Mumbai (Bombay) and moved with my parents to Nairobi at the age of thirteen. I attended the Aga Khan Academy in Nairobi until we moved again to Dar es Salaam in the neighbouring state of Tanzania. I completed my high schooling in Dar, at the International School of Tanganyika and came to the U.S. to pursue my undergraduate education. In 1988 I received a BA (Hons) at Northwestern University and subsequently moved to Durham, North Carolina to enroll in the Phd program in English at Duke University. I received the Phd in 1996. Since then I have been at Tulane University teaching with joint appointments in the Department of English and the Program of African and African Diaspora Studies. I served as Co-Director of the Program of African and African Diaspora Studies during 1997-2000 and since July 2006 am serving as Chair of the Department of English. In the year 2001-2002 I received a National Endowment for the Humanities Award for a residential fellowship at the National Humanities Center. A brief personal account of my experience may be found here. In July 2002 I was awarded tenure and promotion to Associate Professor at Tulane. Most recently, in the summer of 2004, I was a visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University where I am now a Life Member.

Here are the three major projects that I have been working on for the past few years. Further information on my publications may be found here.
 

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