Sarah Zahed

Assistant Professor

Dr. Sarah Zahed is an Assistant Professor of Global and Postcolonial Literature, specializing in nationalism studies and its intersections with British and Imperial political thought in 20th- and 21st-century South Asian and Middle Eastern literature. Her research examines the enduring cultural and political legacies of empire, particularly how colonial histories shape contemporary literary production, linguistic practices, and global narratives. Engaging with postcolonial theory, translation studies, and the politics of language, her work explores the role of literature in negotiating histories of displacement, cultural memory, and transnational identity. Dr. Zahed is currently working on a book project that examines Middle Eastern poetry and literature through the lens of self-determination, migration, and diasporic consciousness. She is also a co-editor of Living in Languages, a journal dedicated to translation scholarship. She earned her Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York, University at Albany, where her dissertation on Middle Eastern poetry and literature was recognized with the Initiative for Women Award. She teaches courses on postcolonial theory, South Asian, Middle Eastern, Jewish American, and Arab American literatures. Previously, she served as the Assistant Director of the Writing Center at the University at Albany, an experience that informs her research on multilingual writing pedagogies and the intersections of language, power, and academic discourse.