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11.27.2011 Guest of the Week: Dr. Nayereh Tohidi Professor and former Chair at the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies, California State University, Northridge Research Associate, Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA Host: Dr. Kamran Abedini

Dr. Tohidi will first briefly explain about her teaching and research at CSUN and about her Department (Gender & Women’s Studies) and this new field of study that began in the early 1970s. Today all accredited universities in the US have either a Program, a Minor or a Department, hence a Major in this field. Dr. Tohidi will then talk about the new program she has been directing to develop in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at CSUN; what the program is about and why it is important.  

Dr. Nayereh Tohidi is a Professor and former Chair at the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies, California State University, Northridge. She is also the Research Associate at the Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA where she has been coordinating the Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran since 2003.



Her teaching and research areas include sociology of gender, religion (Islam), ethnicity and democracy in the Middle East and post-Soviet Central Eurasia, especially Iran and The Azerbaijan Republic. She is the recipient of several grants, fellowships and research awards, including a year of Fulbright lectureship and research at the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan; post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard University; the Hoover Institute of Stanford University; the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and the Keddie-Balzan Fellowship at the Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA. She has held visiting positions at Universities of Iowa, Minnesota, Harvard, UCLA, and USC. Recently she has been awarded the National Endowment Grant for Humanities to develop and launch a minor in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies in California State University, Northridge. Dr. Tohidi’s publications include editorship or authorship of: Globalization, Gender and Religion: The Politics of Women’s Rights in Catholic and Muslim Contexts; Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity within Unity; and Feminism, Democracy and Islamism in Iran.