Leila Pourtavaf is an Assistant Professor of Global Public History at York University’s Department of History. Her research stands at the intersection of gender, modernity, and Middle East history with a focus on Qajar Iran. Her upcoming book project, The Cosmopolis Harem, looks at the social, cultural, and spatial dimensions of the women’s quarter of Nasir al-Din Shah’s court. She is also an independent curator and has published in a wide range of journals in both academic and cultural realms, including the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Iran Namag: Bilingual Quarterly of Iranian Studies, INCITE: Journal of Experimental Media, Fuse magazine, and ArtEast. She is the editor of Féminismes électriques (2013), a bilingual collection of essays which reflect on the history of feminist art and cultural production.