Congratulations to UBC Asian Studies Professor Sunera Thobani as recipient of the Dean of Arts Award for 2020/21! This annual award recognizes faculty members who have made exceptional and sustained contributions in two or more areas (educational leadership, teaching and learning, research, and community engagement), and whose contributions have proven to be transformative to the Faculty of Arts.
The award is given in the name of a living Professor Emeritus/Emerita who has made a significant contribution to the Faculty of Arts and has been an inspiration to the award recipient. The Professor Emerita for Dr. Thobani’s award is Dr. Joan Anderson.
Professor Emerita, Dr. Joan Anderson’s scholarship is at the intersection of the health and social sciences, and is informed by critical inquiry, including postcolonial theory and critical humanism. Her research, inclusive of people born in Canada,and those who have come to this country as immigrants or refugees, has been in partnership with colleagues in academic, clinical and community settings. It deals with how personal histories, as well as socio-economic factors and structural constraints,influence the experiencing of health, illness, and social suffering. She has integrated the lessons learned into her teaching; and also into praxis-oriented knowledge exchange. Dr. Anderson has been recognized as a Distinguished Scholar and outstanding mentor. Her late scholarship includes writing, consultation, and continued engagement in knowledge translation and exchange, to foster equitable and socially just public policy, and health care practices.
About Dr. Sunera Thobani
Dr. Sunera Thobani is a Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her scholarship is located at the intersection of the Social Sciences and Humanities. She studies and works on critical race, postcolonial, transnational and feminist theory; intersectionality, social movements and critical social theory; colonialism, indigeneity and racial violence; globalization, citizenship and migration; South Asian women’s, gender and sexuality studies; representations of Islam and Muslims in South Asian and Western media; and Muslim Women, Islamophobia and the war on terror.
The geographical areas of her research include Canada, the US, South Asia and the South Asian diaspora.
Her academic work is informed by a commitment to the scholarship of engagement and by her activism in the anti-racist, feminist and anti-war movements.
About Dean of Arts Award
This annual award recognizes faculty members who have made exceptional and sustained contributions in two or more areas (educational leadership, teaching and learning, research, and community engagement), and whose contributions have proven to be transformative to the Faculty of Arts.
The award is given in the name of a living Professor Emeritus/Emerita who has made a significant contribution to the Faculty of Arts and has been an inspiration to the award recipient. The choice of the Professor Emeritus/Emerita is made by the award recipient in consultation with the Dean’s Office.
To see the list of previous Dean of Arts Award recipients, visit the Faculty of Arts website.
