Kamran Asdar Ali is a Professor of Anthropology, Middle East Studies, and Asian Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. He is an expert on issues pertaining to health and gender, ethnicity, class politics, sexuality, and popular culture and has conducted field research in Pakistan, Egypt, and Mexico. He has authored and edited numerous journal articles and books including Gendering Urban Space in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa (2008) (in which he was co-editor), Comparing Cities: the Middle East and South Asia (2009), Gender, Politics, and Performance in South Asia (2015) and Communism in Pakistan: Politics and Class Activism 1947-1972 (2015).