Afsaneh Najmabadi

Who is Afsaneh Najmabadi?

Afsāneh Najmābādi is an Iranian-American historian and gender theorist. She is professor of History and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University. At present she chairs the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. She is further Associate Editor of Encyclopaedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, in six volumes.

Afsaneh Najmabadi moved as student from University of Tehran to Radcliffe College in 1966. She obtained her BA in physics in 1968 from Radcliffe College, Harvard University, and her MA in physics in 1970 from Harvard University. Following this, she pursued social studies, combining academic interests with engagement in social activism, first in the United States of America and later in Iran. She obtained her PhD in sociology in 1984 from University of Manchester, United Kingdom.

Professor Najmabadi has been Nemazee Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, Fellow at Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown University, at Harvard Divinity School, at Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, and at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. After nine years of teaching and research at the Department of Women's Studies of Barnard College, in July 2001 she joined Harvard University as Professor of History and of Women's Studies. Under her tenure as chair, the Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies changed its name to the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.