I am a new PhD fellow in the School of Culture and Society, based at Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet) under the supervision of Professor Rubina Raja. My BA was in Classics at the University of Oxford and my MA was in The Religious Roots of Europe at the University of Copenhagen. 

My project, Early ’Abb?sid use of Graeco-Roman traditions to project imperial authority and power: A reassessment of the material culture and written sources, will use an interdisciplinary approach to analyse the many ways the ’Abb?sid caliphs, from 754-861 CE, deliberately and dynamically used "Graeco-Roman" traditions to assert their political and religious authority, redressing the scholarship imbalance towards Persian traditions. It will challenge ideas of derivative cultures and urban declines in late antiquity and early Islam and rebalance our current understanding of where and with whom classical heritage lies by demonstrating the ownership of Graeco-Roman traditions that the ’Abb?sids felt and the use they made of those influences to create their own identity.