Adam is a doctoral student in the Transcultural German Studies program. He earned a B.A. in German Studies and Music from the University of Iowa and a dual M.A. in Lexicography and European Languages from the Università degli Studi Roma Tre in Rome, Italy. Most recently he has spent time studying and participating in workshops in Portugal, Hungary, and South Africa and working as a freelance lexicographer for the Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (DWDS) in Berlin.
Adam has worked for nearly fifteen years in Berlin, Germany as a translator and ESL instructor, and, since 2016, as a German teacher for refugees and asylum seekers. During this time, he became interested in the policies and institutions responsible for the real-life struggles faced by his students and the coinciding decolonization efforts both in and outside of the classroom. In his MA thesis, he focused on the authoritative role of dictionaries and lexicons as cultural artifacts and the colonialist and racist ideologies that were recorded and perpetuated by 19th century lexicographers during German colonial expansion.
His research interests center around German colonialist and postcolonialist history, contemporary decolonization efforts, the integration debate, migration and asylum policies, and linguistic exclusion/inclusion. He is also interested in contemporary Arabic, Persian/Dari, and Turkish-language culture and community in present-day Germany.
In his spare time, Adam enjoys cooking, singing, traveling, and being outdoors, especially near water (which is why he chose to move to the desert).