Research and Expertise


My work examines the intellectual, artistic, and material cultures of South Asia and the Persianate world, with particular attention to islamicate manuscript traditions, courtly aesthetics, and the movement of narratives across linguistic, religious, and political boundaries. I approach manuscripts and paintings as historically situated objects through which power, knowledge, and cultural memory are produced and negotiated in the premodern and early modern periods.

Drawing on codicology, art history, and historical analysis, my research emphasizes the material and visual dimensions of texts alongside their literary and intellectual contexts.

Primary Research Areas

  • South Asian and Persianate manuscript and painting cultures: codicology, paleography, illumination, bindings, scribal practices, and production systems from the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries.

  • Transregional exchange: circulation of stories, artistic conventions, devotional forms, and scientific knowledge across South Asia, Iran, Central Asia, the Ottoman world, and Europe.

  • Courtly patronage and intellectual networks: royal libraries, imperial workshops, scholarly communities, and the relationship between knowledge production and political legitimacy.

  • Religion, ethics, and epistemologies of the image: visual rhetoric, devotional iconography, cosmological frameworks, and moral-philosophical concerns in manuscript illustration.

Thematic Interests

  • Kingship, gender, and authority as articulated through textual and visual forms.

  • Narrative traditions, including Indo-Christian manuscripts.

  • Transcultural sanctity, interreligious encounter, archival formation, cataloging practices, and the afterlives of manuscripts.

  • Materiality and meaning, particularly how paper, pigments, script, and texture shape intellectual and artistic expression.

Methodological Approaches

  • Codicological and material analysis: close study of bindings, paper structures, pigments, colophons, watermarks, layout, and paratexts.

  • Art historical interpretation: iconographic and stylistic analysis, workshop conventions, patronage, and aesthetic theory.

  • Textual and philological research: Persian, Urdu, Hindi, and Sanskrit materials, with attention to translation, adaptation, and intertextuality.

Interdisciplinary Reach


My research engages art history, history, religious studies, literary studies, book history, material culture, and archival studies. Across both research and teaching, I aim to make manuscript cultures legible to specialists and broader audiences alike, while maintaining rigorous attention to the intellectual and material specificity these objects demand.

Upcoming Research Projects (2026)

Australian & New Zealand Rare Book School — State Library of New South Wales
Research and Special Collections Engagement
February 2026 

Intensive course examining how rare books and manuscripts are represented in popular media, including the historical origins of these depictions, processes of remediation and embellishment, and the role of commercialism and cultural reception. Includes hands‑on study of special collections at the State Library of New South Wales and related materials at the University of Sydney. Additional research will be conducted with Middle Eastern and Islamicate manuscript and rare book holdings accessible through the State Library’s catalogue and special collections, supporting broader scholarship in manuscript studies and visual culture.

University of Sydney Library — Special Collections
Manuscript Research and Collection Analysis, 2026

Focused research on Islamicate manuscripts and related rare materials held in the University of Sydney Library’s Special Collections. This work will involve close codicological and material analysis, with attention to script, illumination, binding, and provenance. The research will contribute to a deeper understanding of the Library’s holdings within broader transregional manuscript traditions and support improved scholarly description and contextualization of these materials.

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Manuscripts, Material Culture, and Art-Historical Contexts, 2026

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Object-Based Research and Curatorial Contexts, 2026

Object-based research on selected works from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, with a focus on material analysis and curatorial interpretation. This research will investigate the historical, artistic, and institutional contexts of manuscripts and related objects, supporting broader discussions of display, collection history, and the interpretation of Islamicate material culture within museum settings.

Rare Book School (RBS)
Researching Medieval Manuscripts: From Cataloging to Cultural History
July 5 to 10, 2026
University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Intensive in person course offered by Rare Book School focusing on the codicological description and cultural history of medieval manuscripts. The program emphasizes manuscript structure, materials, methods of production, cataloging practices, and interpretive approaches to manuscript studies within their historical and cultural contexts.

Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom

Independent research at the Bodleian Library examining Mughal and Persianate paintings and related manuscript materials. The research will focus on visual analysis, marginalia, inscriptions, and material features in order to support broader scholarly work on manuscript painting and early modern cross cultural artistic exchange.