Abedinifard, Mostafa

Dr. Mostafa Abedinifard is an Assistant Professor of Modern Persian Literature and Culture in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, where he has been organizing the Alireza Ahmadian Lectures in Iranian and Persianate Studies since 2018. A literary and cultural critic and historian, with a special focus on modern Persian and Iranian literatures, cinema, and culture within his broader interests in comparative and world literature, Mostafa has a diverse range of teaching and research expertise, including with subjects in critical and literary theory; critical diversity studies; men and masculinities; humor and satire (social and political aspects); environmental sustainability; mental wellbeing; and scriptures as literature.

Dr. Abedinifard’s co-edited volume Persian Literature as World Literature was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2021. Prior to that, he had co-edited his first collection of articles as a special issue on “Iranian Masculinities” for Iran Namag. Currently, and while advancing two monograph projects—Fictional Masculinities and Self-Deprecating Modernity—Mostafa is co-editing two further special issues, one titled “Revisiting Discourses of Love, Sex, and Desire in Modern Iran and Diaspora,” and another one, tentatively titled “The Legacy of Iraj Pezeshkzad as a Modern Iranian Satirist,” respectively for the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies and Iran Namag. Mostafa is Principal Investigator and Editor-in-Chief of the ongoing digital humanities encyclopedic project, Middle East Humour: A Digital Docent.

Dr. Abedinifard holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Alberta as well as a BA and an MA in English Literature, both from Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran. Prior to joining UBC, Dr. Abedinifard was an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto (2017–2018 [won for the duration of 2017–2019]), working under Dr. Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi’s guidance in the development of his ongoing monograph, “Self-Deprecating Modernity.” Mostafa’s main argument in this study recently appeared as an article, titled “Iran’s ‘Self-Deprecating Modernity’: Toward Decolonizing Collective Self-Critique,” in The International Journal of Middle East Studies.

Dr. Abedinifard’s book chapters, articles, and book reviews have been published/are forthcoming in Persian and English in a variety of areas, including Persian literature, comparative literature, Iranian cinema, Iranian folklore, Persian music, Iranian diaspora literature, Iranian men and masculinities, and Qur’anic studies, in several edited volumes and numerous peer-reviewed journals, such as The International Journal of Middle East Studies; Asian Cinema; The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies; HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research; Social Semiotics; de genere: Journal of Literary, Postcolonial and Gender Studies; Iran Nameh: A Quarterly of Iranian Studies; Literary Criticism (Tehran); Mahoor Music Quarterly (Tehran); American Historical Review; Iranian Studies; Journal of Men’s Studies; Cultural Sociology; Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics; The European Journal of Humor Research; New Directions in Folklore; and The Forum for Inter-American Research.

Dr. Abedinifard is currently serving on the Editorial Boards of four journals: Iran Namag; Journal of Men’s Studies; folklor/edebiyat; and Humor: International Journal of Humor Research. Visit Dr. Abedinifard’s UBC profile here.