Mojab, Shahrzad

Dr. Shahrzad Mojab (June 27, 1954/6 Tir 1334) is an Iranian scholar, activist, and educator who held positions at the Department of Leadership, Higher, and Adult Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) and the Women and Gender Studies Institute (WGSI) at the University of Toronto. She served as former Director of WGSI (2003 – 2008, 2022), Director of Studies in Equity and Solidarity at New College (2018 – 2021), and Interim Principal of New College (2009 – 2010).

Dr. Mojab’s scholarship encompasses diverse subjects including educational policy, global perspectives in adult education, gender relations in context of wars and violence, political resistance and persecution, diaspora studies and transnationalism, Kurdish resistance movements, Marxist feminism, and anti-racist pedagogy. Her work can be grouped into three inter-related areas: (1) women and revolutionary social movements in the Middle East, (2) the global politics of education and learning, and (3) student movements and the state-university relations in Iran.

Born in Shiraz, Iran, Dr. Mojab began her academic career training as a teacher (Teacher Training Certificate, 1974) and translator (B.A., 1977) in Tehran. In 1979, she received her Master of Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in both Comparative International Education and Administration in Higher and Continuing Education. Returning to Iran in 1979, Mojab spent the following four years being involved in the post-revolution women’s movement, leftist activism, and the Kurdish nationalist autonomous struggle, while also serving as a Lecturer at the National University of Iran (1979 – 1980). By 1983, Dr. Mojab was forced into exile and returned to the United States and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to pursue her PhD, completing her dissertation, The State and University: The ‘Islamic Cultural Revolution’ in the Institutions of Higher Education of Iran, 1980-1987 in 1991.

Dr. Mojab held academic positions in both Ontario and Quebec, including at the University of Windsor (1990-1993), Concordia University (1993-1996), before accepting a faculty position at OISE’s Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology (now the Department of Leadership, Higher, and Adult Education, LHAE) in 1996. Her tenure at the University of Toronto now spans multiple decades and departments, including WGSI and LHAE. In addition to her teaching and research roles, she has undertaken significant senior administrative responsibilities at WGSI and New College. Her directorship at WGSI was crucial for establishing the institute as an internationally recognized, self-governing centre for excellence in feminist research and teaching. She was able to raise funds to develop both the Shahidian Endowment and Heydarian Award for Social Justice. During this time, she was a five-time recipient of the Dean’s Award for Merit from the Faculty of Arts and Science, for outstanding contributions to scholarship, teaching, and service. She also contributed to many committees within the university including OISE Council (2019), UofT’s Equity Advisory Board (2005 -) and Status of Women Advisory Council (2001), and the University of Toronto Faculty Association Executive (2001), among numerous others.

From 1986 to1993, Dr. Mojab was involved in the implementation of the Federal Government Employment Equity Act in Canadian universities and served on five professional organizations: the Council of Ontario Universities, the Ontario Confederation of Universities Faculty Associations, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Ontario Employment Equity Network, and the Canadian Employment Equity Network. In the course of this work, she developed a comparative perspective on state-education relations in the West and in the Middle East, later analyzing some of these relationships in her research project Quebec Universities and the Challenges of Diversity (funded by Multiculturalism Citizenship Canada) and Immigrant Women and Adult Education (Connaught Fund, University of Toronto).

Dr. Mojab’s scholarship in educational policy studies, women’s studies, and comparative and international education is interdisciplinary and geographically located throughout the Middle East, Europe, and Canada. In blending transnationality and interdisciplinarity, she has contributed to building research networks intended to transcend teaching approaches, initiate rigorous methodologies, and diversify knowledge mobilization. A notable instance of such effort is her participation in the SSHRC-funded Women in Conflict Zones Network (WICZNET) and The Kurdish Women’s Studies Network (now the Kurdish Gender Studies Network-KGSN) a multi-ethnic, inter-regional, and transnational network of researchers and activists.

A prolific author and editor, Dr. Mojab’s publications span a broad range of topics though broadly call for greater understanding of the importance of education as a critical tool for social mobility, political participation, justice, equity, and democracy. She challenges relationships between states, capitalism, and education, noting that education alone cannot reshape the unequal division of power. Titles include Kurdish Women Through History, Culture and Politics (editor, 2024); Women of Kurdistan: A Historical and Bibliographical Study (co-authored with Amir Hassanpour, 2021); Revolutionary Learning: Marxism, Feminism and Knowledge (co-authored with Sara Carpenter, 2017); Women of a Non-State Nation: The Kurds (editor, 2001).

Similarly, her interdisciplinary interests are represented through her membership on variety of editorial boards, including Teresa L. Ebert and Mas’ud Zavarzadeh Books in Marxist Social and Cultural Theory, Routledge (2021-); Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (2000-); Convergence, Journal of International Council of Adult Education, (1999-2002); Resources for Feminist Research (1999-2003); and Nimeye Digar, Persian Language Feminist Journal (1992-1999).

While at the University of Toronto, Dr. Mojab’s work has focused on questions of war violence and learning, raising awareness of women political prisoners in the Middle East through writing, conferences, and exhibitions. This work is archived and curated on the website of The Art of Resistance in the Middle East. In 2023, she created and curated The Archive of Defiance, an aesthetically inspired resource for transnational feminist teaching, research, and activism.

Components of Dr. Mojab’s research findings have also been incorporated into artistic works as a method to translate her research into accessible formats and further engage the social and political ideas expressed. Her collaborative work with Shahrzad Arshadi, feminist photographer and filmmaker, has included the documentaries Samjana: Memoirs and Resistance (2007) and Dancing for Change: Kurdish Women of Iran (2015). Similarly, the animation, Marx & I (writer and narrator, 2022) and dance performances Behind the Stained Walls (choreographed and performed by Roshanak Jaberi, 2010) and No Woman’s Land (in collaboration with Dr. Doris Rajan and Roshanak Jaberi, 2019) are examples of the creative partnerships that Dr. Mojab pursues in her work.

Dr. Mojab has served in numerous executive positions, including President of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education, Member at Large of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, and Chair of the Status of Women Committee in the University of Toronto Faculty Association. Dr. Mojab was awarded the Royal Society of Canada Prize in Gender Studies (2010) and the CASAE/ACÉÉA Lifetime Achievement Award (2020), among other honours in recognition of her numerous academic achievements. Readers are encouraged to reference Dr. Mojab’s CV (B2024-0029_df002 in Series 1: Personal and biographical) for a full listing of awards, publications, grant funding, and courses).

Dr. Mojab’s lifetime intellectual and political partner was Professor Amir Hassanpour (1943 – 2017), a Kurdish-Iranian Marxist scholar and a professor at the Department of Middle and Near Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto.

Added by Nourane Abdelshafy, April 2025