Websites

The Minor in Persian Studies , Middle East Studies , Modern Languages & Literatures , ARA chroma , Amazon Books, academia.edu

Bio:

Dr. Mitra Ara is a cultural historian, professor, and founding director of the Persian & Iranian Studies program in the College of Liberal & Creative Arts at San Francisco State University. As a cultural historian, she teaches courses for the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Philosophy-Religious Studies, International Relations,  Middle East Studies, and the School of Cinema. She earned her B.A. in Religious Studies, her M.A. in South & Southeast Asian Studies with a focus on Sanskrit and Avestan religious texts, and her Ph.D. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include Indo-Iranian peoples, religions, mythology, cosmology, and eschatology. Alongside her philanthropic efforts, her research has taken her around the world. She is an artist, photographer, translator, and the author of several books, including Eschatology in the Indo-Iranian Traditions: The Genesis and Transformation of a Doctrine; A Lexicon of the Persian Language of Shiraz; Systematic Guide to Reading and Writing Persian Language (1st and 2nd editions);  Quatrains of Omar Khayyam: Astronomer-Poet of Persia, Metamorphosis of Nothingness; Do You See What I See (Volumes I & II); and Ancient Roots of Creation and Afterlife Beliefs; along with numerous articles, conference presentations, workshops, colloquies, and public talks. By establishing the first and only multidisciplinary Persian & Iranian Studies Minor program within the California State University system, Dr. Ara has created a unique academic resource for understanding, studying, and appreciating world cultural heritages. This unique program allows students to explore history, archeology, religions, languages, literatures, arts, and cultures in their various forms. It provides a broad perspective that encompasses the diverse geographic and linguistic landscape of Asia's historic Greater Iran, and contemporary Persianate societies. Professor Ara is the principal investigator and recipient of grants from various U.S. institutions, including the Department of Education, the Parsa Community Foundation, Startalk, and the Strategic Language Initiative to establish and expand Persian and Iranian studies programs at California State University and San Francisco State University. In 2011, she received the faculty’s Special Recognition Award from the Office of International Programs for outstanding contributions and service to the international student community. The same year, she was honored with the Strategic Language Initiative Consortium’s Special Award for Leadership, Dedication, and Excellence. In 2012, the Institute of International Education awarded her a Certificate of Appreciation for her teaching and mentorship. In 2020, she was chosen by the faculty honors and awards committee to receive the College of Liberal & Creative Arts' Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Service at San Francisco State University. She has served on diverse academic boards, including SF State's Academic Senate Committee, Curriculum Review & Appeal Committee, and Fellowships Office Committee. She also continues to serve on the Society for Asian Art's Advisory Committee. 

Professor Ara's books on Amazon:

• Ancient Roots of Creation and Afterlife Beliefs
• Systematic Guide to Reading and Writing Persian Language (Second Edition)
• Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, Astronomer-Poet of Persia: Metamorphosis of Nothingness
• Do You See What I See - Book I
• Do You See What I See - Book II
• Systematic Guide to Reading and Writing Persian Language: In Naskh & Nasta'liq Styles (First Edition)
• A Lexicon of the Persian Language of Shiraz
• Eschatology in the Indo-Iranian Traditions: The Genesis and Transformation of a Doctrine

Website(s):

Via Consolare Project

Bio:

Michael Anderson received a B.A. in history and an M.A. in Archaeology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1997 and 2001, respectively.  In 2005, he received a Ph.D. in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge, where his dissertation was entitled, ‘Visitors, Inhabitants, Space and Power in the Roman House.’  He has worked at the site of Pompeii since 1996 and has been the Director of the Via Consolare Project since 2006.  He has published numerous articles and chapters on Roman urbanism and domestic space, and is currently completing the publication of excavations undertaken in the Casa del Chirurgo (House of the Surgeon), Pompeii by the University of Bradford betweeen 2002-2006.

Bio:

I am Associate Professor of Italian and German at San Francisco State University, where I teach a wide range of language, literature, and culture courses in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. I am also the Program Coordinator and Undergraduate Advisor of the Italian Program. I strongly believe in the value of the humanities and the possibilities that foreign languages and cultures offer in leading to creative and critical encounters among individuals and groups. I am convinced that anyone can learn a foreign language if driven by motivation and provided with the adequate tools and support. I am excited to guide students in their exploration of Italian and German and I look forward to welcoming new students in my courses.

Research

My primary research focuses on storytelling in contemporary German-language literature, which I explore through the lens of narratology. I am particularly interested in the narrative representation of “moments of rupture,” which often ensue from crucial experiences of physical and metaphorical mobility or lack thereof. I also research the way comics and graphic novels portray individual and collective stories, in particular related to issues of mobility, migration and the (re)definition of identity. I also enjoy exploring how contemporary German literature and culture expand to encompass multimodal projects and what writing in the digital age means. My work has been published in Colloquia Germanica, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, DIEGESIS, Pacific Coast Philology, and literatur für leser:innen.

About me

I grew up in Italy, where I received a Laurea Triennale (B.A.) in Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures (German, English, and Spanish) and a Laurea Specialistica (M.A.) in Modern Euro-American Languages, Literatures and Cultures (German and English). In 2009 I moved to Seattle, where I completed an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Germanics at the University of Washington. I also spent time at the Universität Wien (Vienna) and the Humboldt Universität Berlin, and I taught Italian in two Austrian high-schools. In my free time, I enjoy baking, running and hiking.

Bio:

Hello! I've been teaching in the Women and Gender Studies department at SFSU since 2007, and I've been a Women and Gender Studies professor since 1994. I'm a historian, and I teach courses on research methods, writing, and feminist and queer theory. I wrote a book about San Francisco's early-twentieth-century LGBTQ history called Wide Open Town and another book on queer oral history methods called Bodies of Evidence. I'm currently studying tourism and its relationship to gentrification in SF, and I’ve almost completed writing a book with maps on the gay/queer/trans history of eight San Francisco neighborhoods. Meanwhile, I've been active, over the years, as a volunteer at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. I founded the Historical Society's oral history project in 1992, served as the co-chair of the Archives Committee from 2004-2008, and served several terms on the Board of Directors. 

Teaching at SF State

WGS 300: Gender, Race, Nation (GWAR writing seminar)

WGS 400: "That's Not What I Said": Feminism, Oral History, and Research Methods in WGS

WGS 601/801 Cultures of Consumption: Gender, Race, and Neoliberalism 

WGS 698 Work Study in Feminist Projects (Nonprofit Industrial Complex)

WGS 690 Senior Seminar 

WGS 700 Introduction to Women and Gender Studies 

WGS 712 Graduate Seminar in Queer Theories 

WGS 820 Graduate Seminar in Feminist Research Methods 

WGS 898 MA Thesis writing workshop

HUM 376 San Francisco 

Selected Publications

Books

Nan Alamilla Boyd and Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, eds. Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965 (University of California Press, 2003).

Articles and Book Chapters

"History as Social Change: Queer Archives and Oral History Projects," in Understanding and Teaching LGBT History, Leila Rupp and Susan Freeman, eds. (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014)

Website(s):

AMED Studies

Bio:

Rabab Abdulhadi, founding Director/Senior scholar of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program at SFSU, is co-founding Editorial Board member of Islamophobia Studies Journal, lead editor of book volumes and author of over 80 articles and book chapters in seven languages. She received her PhD from Yale University (2000) and scholarly awards and community honors, including Sterling Fellowship, New Century Scholarship, best non-fiction book award, and American Association of University Professors, National Women’s Studies Association. She is compiling critical oral histories of Palestinian activism and editing an anthology on Teaching Palestine; and roundtables on Black Liberation; Abolition and Reparations; and Whose Narrative? Gender, Justice and Palestine.

She is the recipient of several awards by AAUP; ADC; IFCO; Al-Awda; American Muslims for Palestine; Arab Feminist Union; and was named Bay Area Visionary by the National Women’s Studies Association. A Policy Advisor for Al-Shabaka; she serves on the Board of Afro-Middle East Center (Johannesburg, South Africa); International Advisory Board of World Congress of Middle East Studies and co-chairs (with Simona Sharoni) Feminists for Justice in/for Palestine, NWSA. A public intellectual, she serves on the Executive Committee of California Scholars for Academic Freedom; the Advisory Board of the US Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel; and the recently formed CSU Coalition to Disarm and Defund. She is faculty advisor to Afghan Student Association; General Union of Palestinian Students; Muslim Student Association and Muslim Women Student Association. She co-organized and led several delegations to Palestine, including the Indigenous and Women of Color Feminist Delegation, US Prisoner, Academic, Labor Solidarity and Teaching Palestine, including Birzeit, AN-Najah, Seville, and South Africa.  

Bio:

Ashley D. Aaron is Lecturer Faculty at San Francisco State University in the College of Ethnic Studies, where she lectures in the Department of Africana Studies, and in the Department of Race and Resistance Studies. Her current teaching and research interests are the history and current manifestation of racism in the Americas, Global Black Liberation Movements, enslavement and resistance in the Americas, Black women's responses and organizing strategies to state sanctioned violence, Black art and culture, and Culturally Responsive Education in public and private schools.

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Education

City College 2001-2002