Education:

Marie Curie BREMEN-TRAC COFUND Post-doctoral Fellowship in Cinema Studies (2013-2015), Department of Film Studies, Media Studies, and Media Education, Excellence Initiative, Elite University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

PhD Cinema Studies, Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada

MA Women’s Studies, Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada

MA English, University of the Punjab, Lahore Pakistan

Academic book: 

Rahat Imran: Activist Documentary Film in Pakistan: The Emergence of a Cinema of Accountability.  Routledge Publishers, Taylor & Francis Group, UK, USA, 2016. (Hardback edition).

Paperback edition: 2018. Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series, Taylor & Francis Group, UK.

Academic Positions:

Associate Professor, School of Creative Arts (SOCA), University of Lahore, Pakistan

Assistant Professor, Institute of Social and Cultural Studies (ISCS), University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

Visiting Professor, National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, Pakistan

Marie Curie BREMEN-TRAC Post-doctoral Fellow, University of Bremen, Germany

Teaching Assistant, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada

Areas of teaching (undergraduate; graduate; post-graduate), research, and organizational expertise:

Cinema Studies; Communication Studies; Women’s Studies and Gender Issues; Autobiography; Activist Cinema and Theatre; Interdisciplinary and Feminist Approaches in Research; Education and Curriculum Development; Communication and Pedagogical Approaches through Film Media for Social Change; Human Rights; Minority and Interfaith Issues; Islamization and Religious Fundamentalism; Women and Gender Issues in Muslim Societies and Cultures; Women and Religion; Area Studies/Gender Issues in South Asia/Iran/Afghanistan; Cultural Studies; Postcolonial Studies; Third World issues; Research Methodologies in Social Sciences; English Literature.

Additionally, Dr. Rahat Imran has over twenty years of experience working in English newspapers (Pakistan); freelance editor for English language publications; editor by invitation for peer-reviewed international journals; coordinator for international film festivals in Canada; organizer for cultural events and discussion forums; consultant for university-level curriculum development

Project Title: Locating the Storyteller: Muslim Women’s Feminist Autobiographical Cinema from the Islamic World

Project Summary:

My project will break new ground as the first comprehensive study of Muslim women filmmakers’ first-person documentary and auto/biographical cinemas from the Muslim world, with an additional focus on the work of representative diasporic women filmmakers who have addressed questions of Muslim integration in the European context. Filling for the first time a gaping lacuna in Film Studies, the project will map Muslim women’s filmic depictions of their own condition and, through their personal experiences, of issues that broadly impact women’s lives across Muslim cultures, such as gender-specific marginalization, oppressive religious laws, and domestic violence. The study will draw the necessary attention to the struggle of Muslim women filmmakers who face momentous constraints to assert their right to represent their own lives and feminist perspectives, and contribute new material and knowledge to the rapidly growing field of first-person expression in film, and of autobiographical studies more broadly.

Supervised by Professor Laura Rascaroli, a leading authority on first-person cinemas, at the Department of Film and Screen Media, this founding study will create a new object of study: First-person and auto/biographical Muslim women’s film. Significantly, the project will also establish a pioneering permanent ‘Women’s Auto/Biographical Film Observatory at UCC, an open network of film scholars.