Biography
Dr. Sholeh Shahrokhi (she/her) received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley in 2008. In the same year, she began teaching at Butler in the Department of History and Anthropology, and across interdisciplinary programs such as Race Gender and Sexuality Studies; Peace Studies; International Studies; and Global and Historical Studies. Her scholarship focuses on explorations of power as manifested in an intersectional and discursive expressions of gender, race, body, age, religion and ethnicity, urbanity, as socio-cultural frames of differences.
Her research projects in Iran, France, the UK, and the United States have focused on the formation of gendered norms, ideas about sexuality, and most recently on the “crisis” of refugees in Europe and the political north. She has conducted research on art of/by refugees, creativity and aesthetics in political protest in Iran and across the Middle East; a gendered reading of visual politics of the body emerging from contemporary Iranian protest scene; alternative sexualities and lifestyles among young Iranians in the US; spatial claims to the city, the notion of trespass as resistance to urban violence among a category called “runaway daughters” in Tehran; contemporary trends in cosmetic surgeries, shifting ideals of masculinities, femininities, and beauty in Tehran. Her writing on Iran aims to diversify representation of the people, while remaining critical of strategies that exclude “others”.
Book Chapters
Gender and Sexuality: An Anthropological Approach (2017), in Ethnology, Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology, [Eds. Paolo Barbaro], in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK, [http://www.eolss.net]
Iranian War Cinema: The Art of RememberingPain, in the Iranian War Cinema: National Identity, Ethnic Diversity, and Gender Issues, (2012). Edited book by P. Khosronejad. S. K. Publishing, Oxford:UK.
Beyond “tragedy”: A Cultural Critique of SexTrafficking of Young Iranian Women, in Sex Trafficking, Human Rights, andSocial Justice, (2010). Edited volume by T. Zheng. Routledge, NY.
Current and Upcoming Butler Courses
Dr. Shahrokhi is an interdisciplinary professor. Her classes can be found in Butler’s Core and the Anthropology department.
- SW 215: Being Human: An Introduction to Anthropology (Social Justice Diversity approved)
- SW 233: Political Islam in Paris
- GHS 207: Global Women: Rights and Resistance (Cross-listed: Gender Women Sexuality Studies, Social Justice Diversity approved)
- GHS 211: Modern Middle East and North Africa (Social Justice Diversity approved)
- PCA 215: Art Across Borders: Refugees in Political North
- AN 311: Trespass: Anthropology of Power & Difference (Cross-listed: Peace and Conflict Studies, International Studies)
- AN 315: Gender and Colonialism (Cross-listed: GWSS)
- AN 320: Gender and Sexuality Through Globalization (Cross-listed: GWSS)
- AN 326: Youth and Global Cinema (cross-listed: IS and PACS)
- AN 328: Popular Culture: Michael Jackson
- AN 340: Non-western Art: Ethnographic Art
- AN 345: Conflict Resolution Through Art (Cross-listed: PACS, IS)
- AN 352: Anthropological Method: Ethnography (Writing: WAC)
- AN 368: Coming of Age in the Middle East (Cross-listed: PACS)
- AN 390: Anthropological Theory