Pardis Mahdavi


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Welcome!Here you'll learn more about me and my work, my recent articles and books, and how to get in touch with me.

I am currently the Provost and Executive Vice President at the University of Montana. My approach to higher education has been informed by my personal journey as an Iranian-American woman growing up in the U.S., as well as my training as an anthropologist.

I have focused my academic career on diversity, inclusion, human trafficking, migration, sexuality, human rights, feminism and public health.


Latest works

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (MOLLI) •

THE CREATIVE SPARK THAT IGNITED A REVOLUTION - OSHER LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE (MOLLI)

What would creativity look like if it were part of the resistance? In Iran today we are seeing how a series of creative sparks have ignited a revolution that is unfolding in real time on the streets of Iran. For months, the world has been watching with bated breath as the murder of a young woman at the hands of the morality police spurred an outpouring of resistance on the streets of Iran, with dissenters communicating their politics through song, art, poetry, and fashion, and in many cases, being punished for it. Hundreds have died in the ongoing protests whose slogan “women, life, freedom” has caught fire around the world. And as their defiant and creative activism continues, the world watches as creativity sparks a revolution to unseat one of the world’s most elusive regimes.
URIFAE •

TEDxURI 2023: The Creative Spark - April 1, 2023

Pardis will be speaking at the TEDxURI 2023: The Creative Spark Event hosted by The University of Rhode Island April 1, 2023 1-3 p.m. Edwards Hall 64 Upper College Road Kingston, Rhode Island TEDxURI brings big ideas to the world stage through the inspirational voices of our community and beyond, and our speakers challenge us to think bigger than ourselves, participate in shaping the future, and do our part in protecting the planet. TEDxURI 2023 theme is all about sharing inspirational, enlightening stories about creativity and the creative spark that started it all. Creativity is everywhere in the human experience. It is not a skill reserved solely for artists and designers. It is a skill that is useful to everybody, no matter what you do or where your passions lie. Developing, nurturing and sharing our creative spark is more important than ever.
Pepperdine University •

Women. Life. Freedom. Film Screening

Please join the Pepperdine Graziadio Institute for Entertainment, Media, and Sports and the Center for Women in Leadership for an exclusive screening of the documentary short Women. Life. Freedom. followed by a roundtable discussion led by filmmaker Poppy Farsijani (MBA '10) and a reception to support Iranian Women. Special guests include Provost and Executive Vice President at the University of Montana, Pardis Mahdavi, PhD, Iranian-American comedian, actor, producer, and director, Max Amini, and Mehrdad Bahri, the 1st U.S. Iranian reporter to travel internationally to cover and send live reports from inside Team Melli’s Base Camp. As an investigative journalist, author, and former female reporter in the Middle East, Poppy Farsijani (MBA '10) zooms in on the human rights violations being committed by the Islamic Regime against their female athletes and all those who support them with her first documentary, Women. Life. Freedom. Stand in solidarity with Iranian women and imprisoned Iranian athletes.
THE Campus Learn, Share, Connect •

How US universities can future-proof skills education to boost graduate employability

Offering microcredentials, “backward-designed” courses focused on skills, and embedding the latest technologies into curricula can help universities nurture job-ready graduates for the future workforce. Experts from academia and industry joined a recent Times Higher Education round table, held in partnership with Adobe, to discuss methods of adapting skills education to create more employable US college graduates.
Temple University Press •

Temple University Press: Transformations Books Series

With a focus on narrative storytelling, the Transformations Books series explores issues of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as shaped by the lived experiences of authors and grounded in specific locations domestically and globally. Taking geography and justice as broad mapping coordinates, these short, elegant books of 25,000 to 30,000 words engage a cross-section of popular and scholarly readers with powerful, compelling moments of change—exploring all the pain, joy, promise
ELLE •

Decoding Protest Fashion in Iran

When Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, stepped off the train this past September for her vacation in Tehran, she wore a loose, black chiffon headscarf with five strands of hair showing. The hair was a statement—the five strands symbolizing bold defiance of the regime, en route to a removal of the headscarf altogether. She chose a deep red gloss to cover her lips, a decision that seemed to foreshadow the bloodshed that came next. Within minutes, she was taken aside by the Guidance Patrol
Time •

What to Know About Iran's Morality Police

In 2007, Pardis Mahdavi was 13 minutes into her lecture at a university in Tehran about gender and sexuality in post-revolutionary Iran when the morality police stormed through the auditorium doors. “Pandemonium erupted. I was…pulled off stage. I was frozen in a state of suspended animation and…turned to look at one of them who had raised a hand and then I blacked out,” Mahdavi says. Iranian authorities charged Mahdavi, who is provost of the University of Montana, with trying to foment a revolut
Houston Public Media •

Protests continue over the death of Mahsa Amini

A tragic loss of life has sparked a nation to demand their basic human rights following decades of strict laws. Town Square with Ernie Manouse airs at 3 p.m. CT. Tune in on 88.7FM, listen online or subscribe to the podcast. Join the discussion at 888-486-9677, questions@townsquaretalk.org or @townsquaretalk. For a month now, protests have raged on in Iran following the brutal death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini by the morality police for allegedly failing to meet the requirements of the country's
The Conversation •

Iranian women have been rebelling against restrictions since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 – with renewed hope that protests this time will end differently

Shouts of “death to the dictator” and “woman, life, freedom” are reverberating throughout the streets of Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, while in custody of the “morality police” in Tehran. These protests have echoes from past resistance movements. For the past two decades I have been studying gender and sexual politics in post-revolutionary Iran through on-the-ground ethnographic fieldwork. For some 40 years following the Feb. 11, 1979, Iranian Revolution, when Ay
Washington Post •

Opinion | When Iran’s morality police came for me

Audience members ran every which way. I should have been shredding my lecture notes, running from the lectern into the nearby street. But the sight of a dozen bearded men in dark green uniforms rooted me to the floor. Two of the thugs climbed the steps to the stage; one raised his hand above my head, and then everything went black. When I came to, in the back seat of a car, their voices reverberated in my aching skull. “You are a ruined woman who is here to ruin our country,” one growled at me.

26: Hyphen (with Pardis Mahdavi) – Because Language

It joins, it divides. It’s disappearing in some places, but it’s stronger than ever in others. For this episode, we’re talking to Professor Pardis Mahdavi, author of Hyphen, an exploration of identity and self as it concerns this confounding little mark. We couldn’t do what we do without the support of our patrons! They give us show ideas, valuable feedback, and the wherewithal to provide transcripts for all our shows. Become a Patreon supporter yourself and get access to bonus episodes and mo
Ms. Magazine •

"Hell on Earth": Feminist Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh Returned to Iran's Qarchak Prison

Nasrin’s family, her advocates, and Nasrin herself won’t be silenced. On Wednesday, as celebrations erupted around the world in response to the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Nasrin Sotoudeh, the Iranian human rights attorney, was quietly moved back to Qarchak women’s prison—known as one of the worst and most harrowing carceral institutions in the world—after a brief respite in the hospital where she was seeking medical care. While Jan. 20, 2021 was a lar
Arizona PBS •

Young women and children particularly vulnerable to Taliban violence

As we continue to monitor the situation in Afghanistan, many are concerned about the safety of women and young children in the country. Taliban fighters are notorious for taking young women, particularly as their brides. Dean Pardis Mahdavi is the head of social sciences at ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and has family connections in Afghanistan—we talked about the ordeal earlier.
Literary Hub •

The Syntax of Belonging: On the Profound Connection Between Identity and Language

I decided to write my new book, Hyphen, after years of struggling to find belonging. I’m a hyphenated American. Iranian-American to be exact. And for much of my life, I tried to fit on one side of the hyphen or the other. But I failed over and over again. I was too Iranian in America, too American in Iran. And then in 2007 I was kicked out of my ancestral homeland of Iran after writing a book about sexual politics in the Islamic Republic. I was stripped of my citizenship, told never to return.
Ms. Magazine •

Iran’s Presidential Election Threatens to Undo Decades of Feminist Organizing

A closed Iran led by Ebrahim Raisi—known for squashing any and all attempts at human rights—will be a devastating blow to feminist organizing. Iran’s presidential election—or what some feminist activists are referring to as a “selection”—has cast a dark shadow on the feminist movement in the Islamic Republic. It started with the selection of candidates earlier this year. Over 130 women (and almost 1,500 men) put their names forward to be considered for the election. In April, the Council of Gu
OpenGlobalRights •

Under attack from all sides, where does feminism go next?

We are at a turning point in how we think about feminism, womanhood, and resistance. In the US, feminism is under attack from the right, the left, and from within—causing American feminists a “triple bind”. As has historically been the case, the conservative right attacks feminism by trying to incite a moral panic. Feminists are cast as scheming women tearing the fabric of family life by putting their careers and aspirations ahead of procreation or child-rearing, without a care for “life” as tho
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