Shahrzad Mojab

Shahrzad Mojab is an academic activist and professor, teaching at the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), and Women and Gender Studies Institute in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. Shahrzad has been living in Canada since 1986 with her lifelong partner, colleague and comrade, Amir Hassanpour, and their son, Salah.

Education and career Mojab was born in Shiraz, Iran. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts in 1977 in Iran in the English language; her Master of Arts in Comparative Education and Administration, Higher and Continuing Education in 1979 and her Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies and Women's Studies in 1991 both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She spent four years (1979-1983) in post-revolutionary Iran, where she became active in the left movement, women’s movement and the Kurdish autonomous movement. Before joining the University of Toronto in 1996, Shahrzad taught and worked at University of Windsor, Ryerson University and at Concordia University.

Mojab served as interim principal of New College at the University of Toronto from 2009 to 2010, succeeded by Yves Roberge.

During the Shafia family murders trial, Mojab testified as an expert witness for the crown to explain the concept of honour killing.

Research Mojab's areas of research and teaching include education policy studies; gender, state, diaspora and transnationality; women, war, militarization and violence; women, war and learning; women political prisoners in the Middle East; transnational women's organizations; feminism, anti-racism, colonialism and imperialism; Marxist-feminism and learning; adult education in comparative and global perspectives. Her approach to the study of race, gender, class, nationality, transnationality, and ethnicity is informed by Marxist feminist dialectical, and historical materialism approach. She is critical of theoretical frameworks which treat race, gender, and class atomistically, and reduce them to the domains of discourse, text, language, or identity. She critiques monopolies of knowledge and power in education, and advocates dialogical and inclusive pedagogical practices. Mojab's research has been published on Islamic feminism, minority women in academe, diversity and academic freedom in Canadian and Iranian universities, adult education and civil society in the Middle East, feminism and nationalism, state-university relation, and women's access to higher education.

Awards and positions

Professor Mojab is the former Director of the Women and Gender Institute at the University of Toronto (2003-2008). She is also the past-President of the Canadian Association for the Studies of Adult Education.

She is the recipient of several awards, including the 2008 Distinguished Contribution to Graduate Teaching Award at the University of Toronto. In 2006 she was named Noted Scholar in the Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia. In the same year the Student Administrative Council (SAC) of the University of Toronto recognized her commitments to equity and social justice by giving her the SAC Certificate. Shahrzad was the first prize winner in the Women’s WORLD writing contest, “Women’s Voices in War Zones” in 2003 as well as being recognized as the Distinguished Visitor at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

Books