Dr. Peyman Vahabzadeh

Biography

Peyman Vahabzadeh is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Victoria. He was born and raised in Iran and immigrated to Canada in 1989, where he feels at home in coastal British Columbia. Dr. Vahabzadeh completed his BA in Sociology and Anthropology and earned his PhD in Sociology from Simon Fraser University in 2000. His dissertation was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral fellowship and supervised by Dr. Ian Angus, earning him the SFU Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal for Academic Excellence in 2001. From 2001 to 2003, he held a SSHRC-funded postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria under Dr. Warren Magnusson. Dr. Vahabzadeh teaches courses in sociology, political science, and social justice studies at various institutions including Simon Fraser University and Brock University. His research interests include human action, social movements, and the complex interplay of social theory, phenomenology, and postcolonial studies. He has authored nine books in Persian, covering poetry, fiction, literary criticism, and memoirs, and his articles have been published in English and several other languages. Dr. Vahabzadeh continues to influence the fields of social movements and societal renewal with his unique approach of radical phenomenology, which examines the temporal characteristics of human action.

Research Interests