Piia Mustamäki is a scholar of travel narratives, theater and cultural and performance studies. She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship for graduate study in the US. Her dissertation developed a theory of masochism as an interpretive lens into the effects of unequally distributed social power.  Her articles have been published in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism and Nordic Theater Studies.

Before joining NYU Abu Dhabi, Piia taught writing at NYU Shanghai and NYU’s Liberal Studies.  She was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Drama at Oberlin College and has taught numerous classes at Barnard College’s Theater Department, including World Theater; Drama, Theater, Theory; and American Drama in the 1990s and a class at Columbia University’s MFA program in theater.

Originally from Finland, Piia has lived in 6 other countries and is an avid traveler.  Her travel writing has been published in Punctuate, Matador Network, and Culture-ist.  Her NYU Abu Dhabi First-year Writing Seminars concentrate on travel narratives, theories of cultural encounters and urban centers as sites of gender and cultural performance.