Tahmasebi-Birgani, Victoria

Victoria Tahmasebi-Birgani is an Associate Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Tahmasebi is an interdisciplinary scholar whose areas of specialization encompass feminist theories in relation to continental and transnational contexts; critical theories of women’s movements in the Middle East; digital activism; gender and ethics of non-violence; contemporary history of social and political thought.

She holds an Honours B.A. in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of Toronto, and M.A. and Ph.D. in Social and Political Thought from York University, Toronto, Canada.

Some of her recent and forthcoming publications include:

• “Women Continue the Unfinished Project of Liberation in the MENA Region through Online Activism,” in The Unfinished Project of Social Movements in the Middle East, edited by Mojtaba Mahdavi (forthcoming).
• “Social Media as a Site of Transformative Politics and Political Dissent: Iranian Women’s Online Contestations,” in Iran’s Struggles for Social Justice: Economics, Agency, Justice, and Activism, edited by Peyman Vahabzadeh (New York/London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), pg. 181-198.

• Manuscript: Emmanuel Levinas and Politics of Non-Violence (University of Toronto Press, forthcoming)
• “The Sexed Body of the Woman-(M)Other: Irigaray and Marcuse on the Intersection of Gender and Ethical Intersubjectivity,” Contemporary Critical Theory in Canada: Essays in Honour of Gad Horowitz, eds. Shannon Bell and Peter Kulchyski (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013).
• “Does Levinas Justify or Transcend Liberalism?: Levinas on Human liberation,” Philosophy and  Social Criticism, Volume 35, June, 2010.
• “Green Women of Iran: The Role of the Women’s Movement During and After Iran’s Presidential Election of 2009,” Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, (March 2010), 17 (1). Reprinted in Civil Society and Democracy in Iran, ed. Ramin Jahanbegloo (New York: Lexington Books, 2012).
• “Levinas, Nietzsche and Benjamin’s ‘Divine Violence,’” in Difficult Justice: Commentaries on Levinas and Politics, Ed. A. Horowitz and G. Horowitz (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006).