Afsoun Afsahi
Research Area
About
I am an Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the University of British Columbia. Before joining UBC, I was a Justitia Amplificata Postdoctoral Fellow at Goethe Universität Frankfurt and Freie Universität Berlin (2017-2018) and an Assistant Professor of Political Theory and Gender at the University of Amsterdam (Tenured in December 2020).
Teaching
Research
Democratic Theory and Practice: democratic innovations; role of facilitation and games in deliberation; systemic approaches to deliberation and democracy
Structural and Historical Injustice: the ongoing practices of dispossession, oppression, exploitation, and erasure in nominally democratic countries
Gender, Race, and Disability: the effects of positional inequality on democratic practices including deliberation, representation, and social movements.
Methodology: data-sensitive political theory focused on harnessing quantitative research data as well as experiments to develop more empirically grounded democratic theories; critical political theory; realist political theory
Publications
For all publications, see my Google Scholar page.
Graduate Supervision
I am eager to supervise students interested in democratic theory especially deliberative democracy, intersectionality and feminism, disability, and historical injustice especially under settler colonialism.
Note to prospective students: I receive a great number of emails from prospective students and only respond to those who are interested in pursuing research in one of my areas of expertise.
Current graduate students:
Addye Susnick (PhD, 2019-) Trans Joy and Community Care
Past graduate students:
Katie Anne Reimer (MA 2024) Speaking Out and Drawing Out: Tracking the Silencing of Transgender Youth through
Graphic Novels
Vaishnavi Panchanadam (MA 2023) Cartographic Resistance/ Prefigurative World-building: The Democratic Implications of Indigenous Participatory Mapping
Hannah Stanley (MA 2022) Reproductive justice and abolition : an intersectional analysis of sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) in the Canadian carceral system
Additional Description
Teaching 2024/2025:
POLI345: Gender and Politics: Political Thought and Practice
POLI448D/547B: Democratic Theory*
* Undergraduates interested in the class must contact me beforehand.