Education

PhD in Comparative Literature, emphasis in Critical Theory, Department of Comparative Literature, University of California in Irvine, 2017-21

MA in Comparative Literature, Department of Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, 2015-17

MA in Literatures of Modernity, Department of English, Toronto Metropolitan University, 2012-13

BASc in Mechanical Engineering, Department of Engineering, University of Waterloo, 2004-09

 

Research Experience

Research Assistant to Professor Gayatri Spivak, Critical Theory Institute, UC Irvine, 2017

Research Assistant to Professor Victoria Birgani, Women and Gender Studies, U of T, 2016-17

Research Assistant to Professor Eric Cazdyn, Centre for Comparative Literature, U of T, 2014-15

Research Assistant to Professor Monique Tschofen, Communication and Culture, TMU, 2012-13

 

Teaching Experience

Course Director

Artificial Intelligence and Its Strategic Discontents, Faculty of Arts and Science, U of T, 2023

American Foreign Policy: 1945-Present, Humanities, UC Irvine, 2016-20

Representations of Crisis in Contemporary America, Humanities, UC Irvine, 2015-16

Teaching Assistant

Action, Spectacle, Cinema Studies Institute, U of T, 2014-15

Nature of Narrative I & II, Literatures of Modernity, TMU, 2012-13

 

Conference Papers, Panels and Workshops

Workshops and Masterclasses

“Return to the New Commons” with Étienne Balibar, The Institute for Social Inquiry, The New School, 2019

“Theory and Critical Algorithmic Studies”, Humanities Research Institute, UC Irvine, 2018

“The Dickens Universe”, UC Santa Cruz, 2013

Panels

“Returning to the Politico-strategic Question in Aesthetics”, Oppression, Exploitation and Struggle in the Time of Monsters, SOAS, 2023

“The Kurdish Freedom Movement and Hope in Times of Global Capitalism”, The Politics of Hope, the 8th South-South Forum on Sustainability, 2021

“IRI’s Neoliberal Project amid Iran’s Transition to the Global Markets”, Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, Concordia University, 2020

“Critical Reflections on Survival, Endurance and Strategy in Rojava”, Rethinking Crisis, Resistance and Strategy, Panteion University of Athens, 2019

“The Poetics and Politics of Translation in Shamloo, Lorca, and Bacon”, Iranian Studies, UC Irvine, 2018

Papers

“Rival Sovereignties: AI, Labour, and the Sino-American Contest for Digital Hegemony”, Starting Over: Mass Politics and the Future of the Left Conference, University of Naples, 2025

“Strategic Imagination is a Democratic Necessity: The Case of the Rojava Revolution”, Arendtian Counciliarism: Visions & Care for Democracy, Hannah Arendt Center for Political Studies, University of Verona, 2025

“Emancipatory Transitions in Kurdistan and The Prospect of a Radical Democratic Future”, Historical Materialism: The Great Transition, UQAM, 2018

“Technic and Realpolitik”, Anomalies, Aberrations, and Open Futures, GCAS, 2017

“The Unpredictable Trump”, Around the World, University of Alberta, 2017

“The Coffins: Sensory Deprivation and Surviving Prison in Iran”, Survival, U of T, 2015

“To Aletheia Belongs the East and The West”, Repetition: with a Difference, U of T, 2014

 

Select Awards and Grants

Dean’s Humanities Fellowship, UC Irvine, 2019-20 

SSHRC & CGS Fellowships, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2015-19 

The Jordan Center for Iranian Studies Research Grant, UC Irvine, 2016 

Student of the Year Award for Academic Excellence, English Department, TMU, 2013

 

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Refereed Articles
Oveisy, F. (2025) [Forthcoming]. Toward a Folklore of the Left: Retracing the Strategic Models of Fiction from English Realism to Streaming Television. Cultural Critique.

Refereed Short Article
Oveisy, F. (2022, December). Farewell, Rojava: The Philosophical Case for Strategic Thinking as a Democratic Necessity. In D. J. Smith (Ed.), Rethinking Democracy in Kurdistan [Special issue]. Philosophy, World, Democracy.

Refereed Encyclopedic Entries
Oveisy, F. (2015). Cart T. Dreyer. In S. Ross (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.

Oveisy, F. (2015). Elia Kazan. In S. Ross (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.

Oveisy, F. (2015). Stanley Kubrick. In S. Ross (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.

Oveisy, F. (2015). Andrei Tarkovsky. In S. Ross (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.

Oveisy, F. (2015). Kenneth Anger’s “Fireworks.” In S. Ross (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.

 

Other Publications

Select Coauthored Human Rights Reports

Oveisy, F., & Moghtaderi, H. (2014). Iranian queer watch: Annual report on the violation of queer tights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees.

Oveisy, F., & Haerinejad, F. (2015). Best defence practices for LGBT defendants in Iranian courts. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. 

Select Journalistic

Oveisy, F. (2021, June). On the Authoritarian Turn of Global Capital and its Contradictions in the USA. Socialist Project.

Oveisy, F. (2020, March). A Mutating Neoliberalism, Socialist Transitions and Their Foreign Policies. Hampton Institute.

Oveisy, F. (2020, December). Rojava after Rojava. ROAR.

Oveisy, F. (2019, October). Revolution and counterrevolution in Rojava. Socialist Project.

Oveisy, F., & Burc, R. (2019, February). Rojava is under existential threat. Jacobin.

Oveisy, F., & Amini, B. (2018, January). Iran Protests: A Third Path to Political Change. Socialist Project.

Oveisy, F. (2015). Bodies, Breath, and Borders. réflexion(s).

 

Other Experience

Select Editorial Work

Former English Editor, The Rojava Strategy, rojavastrategy.com

Select Organising Work
Union Organiser and Recruiter, UAW Local 2865, UC Irvine, 2018-2019

Select Human Rights Work
Researcher at The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, 2013-14

Select Engineering Positions

Product Development Engineer, Teknion, 2011-2012

Mechanical Engineer, Amico, 2009-2010