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Welcome to the Iranian Studies Students’ Forum, where we come together to cultivate ideas, collaborate, and inspire one another. This dynamic platform serves as a hub for graduate students across disciplines to engage in enriching discussions, share experiences, and forge lasting connections. Join us in fostering a community of learning and growth as we embark on our academic journeys together. Welcome to a space where ideas flourish and futures are shaped.
The Iranian Studies Students’ Forum is proudly sponsored by The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies since 2022. To date, the Fourm has organized scholarly events in the fields of Iranian history, art, and culture.
Past Events:
Future Event:
Contact us: issf.eomi@utoronto.ca
The Forum’s organizing committee is comprised of a group of students responsible for planning, coordinating, and executing events. Their names and their roles are as follows:
Leila Moslemi is a PhD candidate in the Department of Near & Middle Civilizations at the University of Toronto, working under the supervision of Professor Tavakoli-Targhi. She earned her BA in Museum Studies at the Cultural Heritage Education Center in Tehran in 2005. In 2015, she received her first MA in Art History from York University, followed by her second MA in Middle Eastern Studies from University of Toronto in 2018. Her current dissertation examines the Iranian visual public sphere from 1890-1953 by studying images from periodicals from the period of the emergence of such print materials in Iran. Leila is also a Work Study Student and Research Assistant with the Cinema Iranica, Women Poets Iranica, and Archive projects at the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies.
Negar Banisafar is a PhD student in the Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Allameh Tabataba’i University in Iran and two MAs, one in Dramatic Literature from Soore University in Iran and another in the study of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations from University of Toronto. During her second MA, Negar was a recipient of the Scholars-at-Risk Fellowship from the School of Graduate Studies and Massey College, University of Toronto. In 2022, she received the Norman Itzkowitz Turkish Short Story Award for the best short story written in Modern Turkish. At present, she is a Work Study Student for the Cinema Iranica project.
Hanieh Bakhtiari is a PhD student in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. Her research interests encompass sexuality, gender studies, and the history of women’s writing in the Middle East. Hanieh’s current project explores the co-constitution of femininity and modernity in early twentieth-century Iran. Hanieh has published “A Cinematic Rupture with the Mythic Representation of Male Nudity” in the Journal of Bodies, Sexualities and Masculinities. She is also an active participant in the University of Toronto-based Women Poets Iranica research project. Prior to her doctoral studies, Hanieh completed her MA at Western University, where she conducted an independent research project titled “Feminism and Its Usability: A Study of Iranian New Men and Their Claim to Feminism.”
Gunha Kim is a PhD candidate in the Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto. Previously, he studied at Seoul National University. Gunha’s doctoral project examines the historical development of the discourse of voluntary death—that is, suicide and martyrdom—in 20th century Iran. In particular, his dissertation aims to connect the concurrent development of psychiatric studies on suicide, the necropolitical discourse of martyrdom, and the environmental discourse of pollution as a mass suicide. Gunha has been involved with multiple academic projects related to Iran. For instance, he has contributed to the Tavakoli Archives as a digital archivist, and has conducted research for Cinema Iranica and Women Poets Iranica, and, more recently, served as an editorial intern for Iran Namag: A Quarterly of Iranian Studies. Gunha is currently a Work Study Student with the Cinema Iranica project.