Maria Koundoura is chair of the Department of Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College. She is the author of The Greek Idea: The Formation of National and Transnational Identities and Transnational Culture, Transnational Identity: The Politics and Ethics of Global Culture Exchange. She has written articles and book chapters on nationalism, multiculturalism, postcolonial cultures, and globalization. Her next book project, for which she has received a Folger Shakespeare Library Summer Research Fellowship, is "Desire Lines: Metaphors of the Global City." She has also received fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the Alma Hansen Travel Fund, and the National Scholarship Foundation of Greece.