Research Bio

Minoo Moallem is a Gender & Women's Studies professor at the University of California Berkeley. She was the director of the Media Studies Program from 2017 to 2023, and the department chair from 2010 to 2012. She is the author of  Persian Carpets: The Nation as a Transnational Commodity (Routledge, 2018). Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Cultural Politics of Patriarchy in Iran, (the University of California Press, 2005 ), and the co-editor (with Caren Kaplan and Norma Alarcon) of Between Woman and Nation: Nationalisms, Transnational Feminisms, and The State, Duke University Press, 1999. She is the guest editor of a special issue of Comparative Studies South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East on Iranian Immigrants, Exiles, and Refugees. Her new co-edited book (with Paola Bachetta) Fatema Mernissi for Our Times, was recently published by Syracuse University Press (https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/8090/fatema-mernissi-for-our-times/). 

Professor Moallem has also ventured into digital media. Her digital project, "Nation-on-the Move" (design by Eric Loyer), was published in Vectors—Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular.  

Her most recent articles and book chapters include "Weaving Connections: Carpet Art, Community + Environment"  2023, https://www.famsf.org/stories/weaving-connections-carpet-art-community-environment de Young\Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, March 2023, "Networks of Relationalities through the Lens of Material Culture" In The Routledge Companion to Intersectionalities, Edited By Jennifer C. Nash, Samantha Pinto (https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Intersectionalities/Nash-Pinto/p/book/9780367652654) 2023; Right-Wing Studies: A Roundtable on the State of the Field (https://jrws.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/jrws_issue_zero_finalized.pdf) 2022; "Gender, Race, and Religion: Islamophobia and Beyond," in Meridians. Feminism, Race, and Transnationalism (2021); "The Figure of the Martyr in Iran-Iraq Postwar Movies," in Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East( 2022); "Dowreh Series: Mimi Thi Nguyen and Minoo Moallem in Conversation," Jadaliyya ( 2021)"Gender and Culture," Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd Edition, ( 2019); "Reflections on Doing Digital Humanities in the Context of the Middle East" in Routledge Handbook of Middle East Politics (2020); "Staging Masculinity in Iran-Iraq War Movies" in Handbook on Asian Cinema edited by Aaron Magnan-Park, Gina Marchetti, and Tan See-Kam, Palgrave, (2018); "The Unintended Consequences of Equality Within Difference," Brown Journal of World Affairs, fall 2015; "Revisiting the Mostazaf and the Mostakbar," in Feminist Futures, New edition, Zed Press, 2016; Aestheticizing Religion: Sensorial Visuality and Coffeehouse Painting in Iran" in Sensational Religion edited by Sally Pomey, Yale University Press, 2015, and "Praying Through the Senses: The Prayer Carpet and the Converging Territories of the Material and the Spiritual," Material and Visual Cultures of Religion online publication, Yale University, 2014.

Professor Moallem is currently working on the following projects: a co-edited anthology entitled Fatima Mernissi For Our Times (Forthcoming in Spring 2025 from Syracuse University Press). A book manuscript provisionally entitled Filmic Archive, National Memory, and Iran-Iraq War Movies; a research project on Woven connectivities and Ecological Imagination; and another project on Gender and The Politics of Petroleum.

Professor Moallem is affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Berkeley Center for New Media; Center for the Study of Race and Gender, Science, Technology and Society Center, Department of Near Eastern Studies; Blum Center for Developing Economies; Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies; Folklore Graduate Group, Graduate Group in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, and Center for New Racial Studies, A Multi-Campus Research Program.

Professor Moallem received the UC Berkeley Chancellor's Award for Public Service in 2010.

Along with numerous U.S. speaking engagements, Professor Moallem has delivered international keynotes and presentations at de Young\Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (March 2023); Critical Research on Religio, Chinese University of Hong Kong 2024(June 2024); 35th International Geographical Congress, Irland, (August 2024); " "Islamic Nationalism, Fundamentalism, and Transnationalism," Boğaziçi University, Turkey, 2021; Precarious lives, Uncertain Futures Conference, Rome (January 2020); the Simon Fraser University, Vancouver (October 2019); the University of Ghent, Belgium (May 2019); Ecole des Hauts Etudes en Sciences Sociales et Sophiapol, Université Paris Lumière (February 2019); Arte de São Paulo (MASP), Brazil (February 2018); International Cultural Studies, Shanghai (July 2018); International Middle East Association, Sevilla, Spain (June 2018); Crossroads Conference, Sydney, Australia (December 2016); CASAR conference in Beirut (January 2016); the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (May 2016); Utrecht University, the Netherlands (February 2015); NYU Abu Dhabi (May 2014); Seventh Biennial MESEA- The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas, University of Pécs, Hungary (June 2010); London School of Economics and Political Science (February 2010); International Society for Mediterranean Studies, Athens, Greece (April 2009); Society for Social Studies of Science, Montreal, (October 2007); Symposium on Globalization, Sigtuna, Sweden (September 2006); The American University in Cairo (December 2003); the Center for Women's Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden (October 2002); Kvinnovetenskapligt Forum, Umeå Universitet, Sweden (October 2002); he Second International Conference on Middle Eastern and North African Popular Culture, in Hammamet, Tunisia (April 2002);Crossroutes: The Meanings of Race for the 21st Century, Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy (March 2001); Universität Bremen, Germany, (May 2000); Josai International University, Japan (October 1999); International Sociological Association World Congress, Montreal, Canada (July 1998); Center for Research on Citizenship and Social Transformation, Montréal (November 1997); Relativism, Science, Religion and Philosophy, Calcutta, India, (August 1997);Centre des etudes ethniques, Montréal (May 1996); International conference on Gender, Urbanization and Environment, Nairobi, Kenya (June 1994); French Language Association of Sociologists and Anthropologists Congress, Moncton, Canada (May 1988);International Colloquium Strangers in the City, Renne, France (December 1988).

Research Expertise and Interest

Transnational and Postcolonial Feminist Studies, cultural studies, Commodity Cultures, Visual and Material Cultures of Religion, Immigration and Diaspora Studies, Middle East Studies, Iranian Studies