New College of Humanities Faculty and PostDocs

My name is Samah. My name means grace and forgiveness. I am from Tripoli, Libya. The country of silent treasures. My country is known for unrest and war for the past ten years, however, there is more hidden in this beautiful country that should one day blossom and flourish.

Coming from Libya, I am multilingual and multicultural Muslim woman who loves to learn about other cultures and learn about new languages and traditions. At home, I love baking cakes and cook traditional Libyan food.

I have three boys, who make me busy all the time. Teaching them Arabic and Quran is the most difficult part. I am a native speaker of Arabic, but I do not know how to teach it professionally. I try to preserve my Libyan identity through food, clothing, and celebrating Islamic holidays.

I am so happy that I came to USA which I consider my new home. I lived in Pennsylvania, California and now Utah. In all these states, I made friends from all over the world who taught me about their culture, language, and traditions. Now I am using this experience in my teaching where I encourage students to stay curious and research with an open eye and a critical mind to find out about their surroundings and the different issues around the globe.

Before coming to the U, I was a lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University. I am so excited to extend this experience by joining the Department of Writing & Rhetoric Studies and to be part of this vibrant, brilliant community at the U. I am also enjoying the breathtaking mountain views and the lovely nature of Salt Lake City.

I consider myself a bit of a movie buff, especially when it comes to old Hollywood (from the silent era to the 60s). This was my first love in cinema, before I ever studied film academically. Now, I am an avid watcher of many other genres/eras/nationalities of cinema as well.

I enjoy walking through the city, jogging, and scenic hikes (easy ones, I’m no athlete!)

I collect vintage glassware and pottery. I generally find them at thrift stores and estate sales andgravitate towards ones related to places I’ve lived or traveled. The glasses in the attached photo are from: ThePetrified Forest, San Francisco, and France.

As a cliché southern Italian, I enjoy good food, baking (with varying results!), and Nutella.

I am always in search of good live music.

I am a lover of fictionwith a propensity (shall we call it a guilty pleasure?) for YA literature.

I am a sucker for British Drama. I have watched all remakes of pride and prejudice that my husband thinks all male characters are named Mr. Darcy in the movies I watch.

I am raising my youngest daughter, 2, as if she’s my grand-daughter, giving her freedoms and indulgences her poor brothers never had. Apparently, it took me time to realize that kids grow anyways so I might as well enjoy them while it lasts.

I love to try new cuisines. I can cook Egyptian, American, Pakistani, Syrian and Italian dishes (if pasta counts). 

I enjoy hiking and traveling with my kids: reviving my sense of wonder by seeing the world through their eyes.

I am a giver, and so my sense of contentment comes from knowing that I helped someone in some small way any day.

I love to play videogames--I'm partial to Twine games--and I'm interested in videogames culture. In February, I was a panelist at Lubbock-Con 2020!

I got my first tattoo the day I turned sixteen, which was okay in Arizona where I grew up if you had a parent's permission. Among others, I have two tattoos in Ancient Greek (and one in English).

I like to fly! I've had the honor of flying with my friend and colleague Joyce Carter in her single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza A36 on several occasions.

Fortunately, my traveling has overlapped with my work, which means I have been lucky to spend extensive time in Italy and have visited many other European countries.

I am including a picture of me with Rome in the background, another with me shouting alongside Alexey Morosov's marble statue "Caryatid Supersonic" at The Naples National Archaeological Museum, and another of me at standing in the doorway of the Library of Celsus at the ancient site of Ephesus in Turkey.

I feel very fortunate to have a job that has allowed me to spend time in amazing locations. One of my favorite recent trips, other than Turkey, was to Spain. While in the city of Madrid, I took a wine and tapas tour with a local guide and another tourist from Belgium. The tour was that it was initially only supposed to be 2 hours, but because of the hospitality of our guide and the size of our small group, the tour turned into four delicious and delightful hours.

I have two cats, Paisley and Falafel.

I like to do photography of both places and animals.

I am a philosopher of the sciences with a background in scientific practice. I've worked on a marine reserve, in agene expression lab, and behind the scenes at a natural history museum.

My favorite musicians (at the moment) are Mitsuko Usida, John Coltrane, Kendrick Lamar, Barrington Levy, and Jennifer Hidgon. 

My favorite artists (at the moment) areLynette Yiadom-Boakye, Kerry James Marshall, Lee Krasner, El Greco, and Romare Bearden. 

My favorite activities (always) are running, skiing, walking, and hiking (I'm a land-guy; water freaks me out).

My hometown is Coral Springs, Florida (South Florida) 

My favorite sports team: I'm embracing 'the U' (Utah) now -- but full disclosure, I come from the land of the real 'U': University of Miami Hurricanes.

[bio coming soon]

I am no hiker, but I hope my move to SLC will afford me opportunities to become one.

On the other hand, as the pictures show, I am very interested in calisthenics, though perhaps an eternal beginner in it, and have a short-term goal to master the human flag and eventually other more difficult calisthenic movements. 

I am a near-native speaker of Japanese and also speak Urdu, Chinese, and Arabic fluently with varying degrees of proficiency in half a dozen other languages.

As you might imagine, my research interests have taken me across the world, and I hold graduate degrees from universities on three continents. I was once a student in a Qigong practitioner program, and I plan one day to pass the Japanese bar exam, for which I have been preparing, both intensively and at times not at all, over the past two years. I have also begun slowly studying the four traditional Sunni schools of Islamic law, with the hope to master them formally as well.

I should note here that this is the furthest west I have ever lived in the United States and also that I have never lived in one place for more than four years, except between junior high school and high school (five years), so I hope to take full advantage of my new home. As an aspiring novelist with an eternally incomplete manuscript, I plan to make year one here the year of the novel!

My grandfather taught violin for a living and many of my family members are accomplished musicians and dancers. I enjoy playing guitar and piano, though I'm much more of a dabbler!

I grew up in Seattle and have always loved hiking. Several years ago, when I was doing doctoral research in Tokyo, I had an opportunity to climb Mt. Fuji. The best part was watching the sunset from 10,000 feet in the air.

My happy place is the kitchen. I can make a mean linguine alle vongole. I once spent aweek in Iceland, in February. It was cold, the wind was piercing, and the icy landscape was all but vacant.

I used to be a food writer and restaurant critic for the LA Times, while I was in grad school. (There’s an archive of my old articles here.) I was on the “find amazing hidden ethnic gems” beat. I ended up having to choose between an academic career and a food writing career.

Since I’ve been living in SLC for the last 8 years, I also have SLC food recommendations.

I love games, particularly board-games and role-playing games. I have hundreds of boardgames. (Here’s, for example, a list of my recommended board games.) This was once strictly a hobby, but my career took an unexpected right turn when I abandoned my original research projects and ended doing up a lot of work in the philosophy of games - which has now become my first book.

When I’m not reading or writing, you’ll probably find me outside.

I love spending time in the great outdoors, especially the mountains.

Some of my favorite things to do are hiking, biking, and snowboarding.

I have spent most of my life in Oregon and California and I am so excited to move to Utah, where I can continue to take advantage of all that the West has to offer.

My research focuses on Spain, which may seem distant, but actually shares a great deal of history with our region. You will notice that many of the place names in the American West are derived from Spanish. California is just one example. Struck by the beauty and bounty of the golden state, Spanish explorers named the land after a paradiscial island described in a popular 16th century chivalric novel by Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo. And Spain's own landscapes have contributed to the cultural imaginary of the West in the 20th century. Did you know many of the classic western movies--including The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly--were shot in Spain?

I grew up in Zhanjiang, a beautiful coastal city in Guangdong Province, China.

I love swimming and seafood.

I love the color blue.

My hometown is a well-known tourist city in China. It recently made itself famous again for being the filming location of The Bad Kids, a detective TV series that became a great hit this summer.

I love swimming and seafood. I love the co

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or blue. My hometown is a well-known tourist city in China. It recently made itself famous again for being the filming location ofThe Bad Kids, a detective TV seriesthat became a great hit this summer.