Persian Studies Graduate Students

Mehdy Sedaghat Payam received his Ph.D. in experimental print fiction and digital literature from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand in 2014. While doing his PhD, he learnt about Digital Humanities and was fascinated by new horizons and unique approaches that it offers for literary criticism. In order to introduce digital humanities in the Iranian context, he translated a book about it which was published in 2018 by SAMT publications. When he was
translating that book he realized that he needs to gain more expertise in order to apply quantitative methods for literary analysis of the pre-modern Persian texts. Therefore he decided to come to the University of Maryland where world-famous scholars in digital humanities and Persian literature have already started the Persian digital humanities project. Mehdy is a published novelist and his first novel, The Secret of Silence, or Hamlet According to Shakespeare’s Sister was published by Morvarid publications in 2009. He is also an avid tennis fan and plays tennis whenever he finds free time.

Nahid is a Professional Track faculty member at the University of Maryland Department of English. She received her second Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park in May 2022. Her dissertation, "The Development of Theater in Post-Revolutionary Iran from 1979 to 1997," is a historical survey of Iranian drama and theater in the 1980s and 1990s. Nahid gained her first Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Tehran where she taught English and world literature before and after graduation. Her dissertation at the University of Tehran focused on the patterns of narrative in selected British historical dramas and philosophical texts on history. Nahid has published peer-reviewed articles and translated works. Her translations include Three More Sleepless Nights (2023), Fen: A Play (2019), The After-Dinner Joke (2016 & 2018), Nietzsche, an Introduction (2009), and An Introduction to Modern European Philosophy (2008). In collaboration with Ali-Reza Mirsajadi, she has co-edited Oblivion and Other Plays from Post-Revolutionary Iran, a translation anthology, which will appear from Seagull Books London Limited. Nahid teaches World Literature and Social Change (CMLT270), World Literature by Women (CMLT275), Literature of the Americas (CMLT277), Introduction to Persian Literature in Translation (PERS371), and Academic Writing (ENGL101) at the University of Maryland. She has served as a researcher of Persian fiction at the Academy of Persian Language and Literature and as a reviewer in Theatre Quarterly, an Iranian journal on dramatic literature. Her areas of interest include drama studies, British drama, Middle Eastern theater, Persian literature, theater historiography, and literary translation.  

Q-mars Haeri is a Ph.D. candidate in the Theatre and Performance Studies program at the University of Maryland. He obtained his MA from Maryland Institute College of Arts in 2015 and wrote his thesis on the significant role that religious passion plays (ta’zieh) have played in the development of other genres of theatre in Iran. His 2013 adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s He Who Said Yes, He Who Said No produced by the Vaahe Art Collaborative was selected by Iran International Festival of University Theater for a month-long public performance in Tehran and it went on to be performed at the Iran International Fadjr Festival in 2014. At the University of Maryland, he investigates the popular theatre of mid-century Tehran and the Lalehzar entertainment district. His research is jointly guided by the faculty of the PhD program in Theatre and Performance Studies and the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies. He collaborated in creating three issues of the Roshangar Journal and worked on Digital humanities projects of Roshan.

Shaq1@umd.edu
 
Born in Pakistan and raised in the United States, Sara received her MAIS in Women and Gender Studies with a focus in Sufism from George Mason University in 2012. Her master’s thesis – “Beyond Binary Barzakhs: Using the Theme of Liminality in Islamic Thought to Question the Gender Binary” – reflects on the works of Ibn Arabi, Rumi, and Bulleh Shah, presenting a fresh perspective on the experiences of those who identify as hijras or “third genders” in South Asia. Sara is currently a doctoral student at the University of Maryland’s Women’s Studies PhD program, continuing her focus on Sufism which explains her connection to Persian Studies and her interest in learning the language. She has years of professional experience working for international NGOs including United Nations platform committees. 

Niloo Sarabi completed her primary education in Iran and France, and later studied English literature & translation at the Free University in Tehran. She received her MA (English & Comparative Literature) and MFA (Creative Writing) from Chapman University. She was the recipient of the Terri Brint Joseph Award for outstanding MFA scholar in 2010, and served as editor for elephant tree magazine. Her literary works have appeared in the Second Voice Anthology, The Southeast Review, w i g l e a f, Iranian, and elephant tree, and her articles and editorials have been published in ABILITY, OH, and Bariatrics Today magazines. She served as magazine editor and media liaison with OH publications between 2003 and 2011, and she has volunteered in California jails as a certified literacy tutor with the WIN program. She has taught English composition & rhetoric at Chapman University, and she icompleted her PhD in Comparative Literature, focusing on contemporary Persian and English women’s literature, art, and cinema, at the University of Maryland, College Park.

sallame@umd.edu
 
Sahar Allamezade-Jones completed her PhD in the Comparative Literature Department at the University of Maryland with a concentration on issues of gender and sexuality in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries in Victorian and Persian literary traditions. Sahar earned her bachelor’s degree in English Translation Training from Shiraz Azad University. In 2000, she left Iran and earned a Master’s Degree in Victorian Literature at the University of Buckingham. In 2006, Sahar began her academic career as a PhD student at the newly established Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at UMD under the tutelage of Dr. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak. Sahar has participated and presented at various national and international academic conferences. She has taught at both graduate and undergraduate levels at UMD, Persian Flagship Program, and UVA. She is also working as a content provider with the newly launched online journal Zannegar, which focuses on women’s issues.

ruzzbeh@umd.edu
 
Abbas Jamshidi was born and raised in Shiraz, Iran. He has a Master’s Degree from Shiraz University in English Language and Literature and has taught English literature at Azad University. As a doctoral student at the University of Maryland’s Comparative Literature Program he has benefited from Dr. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak’s expertise in modern Persian literature and icompleted his PhD dissertation under the supervision of Dr. Karimi-Hakkak and Dr. Brian Richardson (English Department). In his dissertation he examines anti-Arab representation in Persian (with a focus on Sadeq Hedayat) and English literature (with a focus on Salman Rushdie). He focuses on the genealogy of anti-Arab representation in these literatures; racialization of Arabs as distinct from and inferior to the Persians/Indians/British; and how novel forms of representation continue to be crafted in the two literary traditions to demean and denigrate the Arabs. In a recent year-long trip to India, he explored the role of India, specifically its local Parsi (Zoroastrian) community, in the production of anti-Arab discourse over time. 

Roshan Institute Fellow for Excellence in Persian Studies 
safouran@yahoo.com
 
Safoura Nourbakhsh was born and raised in Iran, Tehran. After receiving her BA and MA in English Literature from San Francisco State University, she returned to Iran in 1992 and taught English literature courses at Allameh University from 1997-2003. Her interest in feminist theory and women’s right also prompted her involvement with Zanan magazine as a writer and an occasional consultant. Her Persian translation of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of It’s Own (2004, Niloofar Publishing) is the first published translation of the book.Safoura started her PhD degree in women’s studies at University of Maryland in the Fall of 2005. While working on her PhD she also became the managing editor of Sufi (a biannual journal of mystical   philosophy and practice). Later she helped plan design, and execute Zannegaar (an online journal of women’s studies) and acted as it’s project manager and editor for the first four issues. Safoura taught “Iranian women writers in Translation” at the University of Maryland. Safoura is the recipient of the first Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies. Safoura is currently working on her dissertation “Gender and Sexuality in Persian expressions of Sufism.” The following chapters of her dissertation are in progress: an ethnography of women in the Nimatullahi Sufi order, Women in the Persian biographies of Sufi Saints (from Hujwiri to Attar), women as representations of ego (nafs) and male desire in Sufi literature (Rumi and Attar), the gender of love in Sufi literature (Ghazali).