Congratulations to Dr. Pheroze Unwalla on winning a 2024 UBC Killam Teaching Prize.
Dr. Pheroze Unwalla is Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of History and Chair of the Middle East Studies (MES) program at UBC. In the past five years, he has worked to establish the Middle East Studies program by building an interdisciplinary discipline and cultivating a growing community of faculty, students, and staff whose research and passions converge on the Middle East.
Dr. Unwalla’s pedagogy centres the development of emotionality and critical hope interventions. His Students as Partners (SaP) approach to student-instructor dynamics unsettles the traditional classroom, and fosters more just, equitable, and ethical modes of knowledge production and sharing. His teaching and research also aim to efface contrived boundaries between academia and activism, empowering students to disavow the veneer of ‘neutrality’ and seek out higher purpose in scholarly labour.
“I strive to challenge and transform students’ understanding of the ‘Middle East,’ Middle East Studies, and History as a discipline,” says Dr. Unwalla. “To my mind, this necessitates upending academic conventions on classroom hierarchies as well as modes of knowledge production that delegitimize the personal/emotive and hence discriminate against marginalized communities with personal stakes in the subjects at hand.”
“I see the classroom as a collaborative space in which we must openly and honestly wrestle with difficult pasts and presents, and work through their meanings for ourselves and others,” he continues. “Through that labour, we also begin to imagine and work towards futures beyond those proscribed/prescribed for us.”
