She spent the first decade of her academic career at the American University in Cairo during a particularly turbulent period in Egypt’s history. Her first monograph Burying the Beloved: Realism and Reform in Modern Iran (Stanford University Press) was focused on the development of the novel and civil law in Iran, and specifically on the return of the figure of the classical beloved in modern literature. Her other published work is focused on the contemporary proliferation of Iranian diasporic cultural production and the role it plays in processes of assimilation and (dis)identification. Motlagh’s two current book projects are focused, respectively, on the modern history of translation between Iran and the West, and on the role of film and media in contemporary Iranian debates over justice and rights.