Janet Afary is Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. She has published extensively on modern Iranian culture and politics as well as issues of gender, family, intimacy, and sexuality in Muslim-majority societies. She received her PhD with distinction from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She also taught at Purdue University where she was appointed University Faculty Scholar.
Her books include: Sexual Politics in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2009, winner of the British Society for Middle East Studies Annual Book Prize); The Iranian Constitutional Revolution: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism (Columbia University Press, 1996); (with Kevin B. Anderson) Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism (University of Chicago Press, 2005, winner of the Latifeh Yarshater Book Award for Iranian Women’s Studies); (with John R. Perry) Charand-o Parand: Revolutionary Satire in Iran (Yale University Press, 2016), Honorable Mention Lois Roth Persian Translation Prize; and (with Kamran Afary) Molla Nasreddin: The Making of a Modern Trickster (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), winner of the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize for best scholarly book in Middle East Studies published in the UK, and the Eugenia M. Palmegian Prize from the American Historical Association (US).
At UCSB she held the endowed Mellichamp Chair in Global Religion and Modernity (2009-2024) and has served as president of several academic associations including the Association for Iranian Studies, the Coordinating Council for Women in History (CCWH-AHA), and the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS-MESA). Her articles have appeared in the Nation, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Dissent: A Magazine of Politics and Culture and numerous other scholarly journals and edited collections.
Honors & Awards
- 2024: Hamid Naficy Book Award Association for Iranian Studies (Honorable Mention)
- 2023: British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies
- 2023: American Historical Association (AHA) Book Prize
- 2016: Lois Roth Persian Translation Book Prize (Honorable Mention)
- 2010: British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies
- 2009: Keddie-Balzan Fellow, UCLA Department of History
- 2006: Dehkhoda Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Iranian Studies
- 2006: Latifeh Yarshater Award for Best Book in Iranian Women’s Studies
- 2006: University Faculty Scholar Purdue University
- 2004–5: National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (NEH)
- 2004–5: American Council for Learned Societies Fellowship (ACLS)