Aria's research and teaching focus on modern Persian literature and translation studies. His first book, Reading across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism, forthcoming with the University of Texas Press (March 2024), details the dynamic and interconnected ways Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through new ideas about literature.

Listen to Rustin Zarkar interview Aria on the Ajam Podcast #28: Institutionalizing Persian Literature in Iran & Afghanistan (2020).

Watch Aria's talk, "The Formation of Adabiyat as a Modern Literary Discourse" at Princeton University's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran/Persian Gulf Studies (2022).

During the 2023-2024 academic year, Aria is co-directing the Translation Studies Hub, which is focused on making translation studies a more visible and integral fixture of humanistic and social humanistic undergraduate curricula at the UW.