nazli.akhtari@uwaterloo.ca
519-888-4567 x41527
Location: ML 119C
Nazli Akhtari is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Waterloo. Her research broadly engages questions of critical historiography and minoritarian archives within the context of diaspora and empire. She is currently at work on two projects. The first is a book manuscript in progress on archival memory and image-making practices in the global Iranian diaspora. The second project funded by the SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2023-2025) considers the institutional inclusion of diasporic and minoritarian artistic practices in relation to the settler colonial project of empire across turtle island.
She has published articles in Theatre Journal, Theater, Camera Obscura, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Global Performance Studies, and Performance Matters among others. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and was formerly a visiting Assistant Professor of English and Drama at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Nazli is the 2024 recipient of the Yasuo Sakakibara Prize for the best paper presented by an international scholar at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association and the past recipient of numerous research awards including the 2021 Research Fellowship from the American Society for Theatre Research, an honorary mention for the inaugural Neda Nobari Dissertation Award (2022), an honorary mention for the Richard Plant Award for best article in English on a topic in Canadian theatre and performance studies (2022), and multiple university grants and fellowships from the University of Waterloo and University of Toronto.
Recent publications:
"A Visceral and Temporal Remix: Performing Reza Abdoh’s Archives” Theatre Journal 76(2) 197-222, 2024.
“We Think the — Cat Got It” Reflections on Cats Performing as Historical Witnesses.” Theater (New Haven) 53(3), 4-21, 2023.
“Remixing to Queer the Archives of Diaspora: Qajar Photography and the Persian Carpet.” Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 37 (111), 1-29, 2022.
“Performance as Feminist Historiography: A Conversation with Gita Hashemi on Zandokht Shirazi and Early Radical Feminism in Iran.” Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 17 (2): 277–286, 2021.