Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Dr. Shirazi is a bicultural, bilingual community-engaged scholar with a broad background in health behavior. Their work is grounded in postcolonial feminist scholarship that focuses on health in the global context of race, gender, immigration, and environment. Their particular focus is on health inequities among immigrant/refugee women, specifically on the socio-cultural barriers limiting access to breast health and lifesaving prevention and care through the utilization of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Shirazi's scholarship also addresses transnational praxis and pedagogy through critical studies of culture, lived experience, and narratives of decolonization with publications on Muslim mothering, family relationships in Iranian film, anti-racist pedagogy, and gendered Islamophobia.

Dr. Shirazi joined the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty in the School of Language, Culture, and Society in 2011.  She was a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. Some courses they teach include: Global Perspectives on Women's Health, Violence Against Women, Feminist Research Methods, and Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Health Justice.  In 2017, Dr. Shirazi was awarded Oregon State University’s Frances Dancy Hooks Award, for building bridges across cultures and modeling transformative action.

Publications:

• Shirazi, M. 2017. “Reflections on Cultivating Community-Based Participatory Research Partnerships with the Afghan Immigrant Community.” Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, 7(1).

• Shirazi, M., K. Caynan. 2016.“A Narrative Account of the Lived Experiences of Older Somali Refugee Women.” The Open Family Studies Journal, 8(1):21-26.

• Shirazi, M. 2016.  “Anti-Racist Pedagogical Strategies for Disrupting Gendered Islamophobia.” Films for the Feminist Classroom, Issue 6.2.

• Shirazi, M., Engelman, KK. Mbah O, Shirazi, A., Robbins, I., Bowie, J., Popal, R., Wahwasuck. A., Whalen-White, D., Greiner, A., Dobs, A., Bloom, J. 2015. “Targeting and Tailoring Health Communications in Breast Screening Intervention.” Progress in Community Health Partnerships, 9(1):83-89.

•  Shirazi, M., P. Duncan, K. Freehling-Burton. 2015. “Gender, Violence, and Separations: Representing Mothers and Daughters in Iran.” Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice, 37(1):84-93.

•  Shirazi, M., A. Shirazi, J. Bloom. 2015. “Developing a Culturally Competent Faith-Based Framework to Promote Breast Cancer Screening among Afghan Immigrant Women.” Journal of Religion and Health, 54(1):153-159.

•  Shirazi, M., J. Bloom, A. Shirazi, Rona Popal. 2013. “Muslim Afghan immigrant women's knowledge and behaviors around breast cancer screening.” Journal of Psycho-Oncology, 22(8):1679-1917.