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 critical and realist approaches to democratic theory, especially power inequalities stemming from historical injustices, absence of children in democratic imaginaries, ongoing marginalizations based on gender, race, and ability, and 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:
Kade 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.