Behnaz Mirzai, historian of modern Iran, teaches Middle Eastern history, Brock University. Areas of specialization: comparative and cross-cultural studies, ethnicity, slavery, gender, social, economic and religious interactions in the Middle East. Current book manuscript for publication: "Slavery, the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the Emancipation of Slaves in Iran 1828-1928," is based on doctoral dissertation. Co-editor of Slavery, Islam and Diaspora (with Ismael Musa and Paul Lovejoy), Africa World Press, 2009. Articles include: "African Presence in Iran: Identity and its Reconstruction," in Traites et Esclavages: Vieux Problemes, Nouvelles Perspectives? (Société française d’Histoire d’Outre-mer, 2002); "The 1848 abolitionist Farmân: a Step Towards Ending the Slave Trade in Iran," in Abolition and Its Aftermath in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia (Routledge, 2005); "The Slave Trade and the African Diaspora in Iran," in Monsoon and Migration: Unleashing dhow synergies (ZIFF, 2005); "Le commerce des esclaves africains dans l’Iran du XIXe siècle" in Jean-Marc Masseaut, (ed.), De l’Afrique à l’extrême Orient (Les Cahiers des Anneaux de la Mémoire, 2006); "The Trade in enslaved Africans in Nineteenth-Century Iran" in Kiran Kamal Prasad and Jean-Pierre Angenot (eds.), TADIA - The African Diaspora in Asia: Explorations on a Less Known Fact (Jana Jagrati Prakashana, 2008); “Emancipation and its Legacy in Iran: an Overview”, in The Cultural Interactions Resulting from the Slave Trade and Slavery in the Arab Islamic World, (UNESCO, 2008); "Qajar Haram: Imagination or Reality" in Slavery, Islam and Diaspora (Africa World Press, 2009). See also http://www.brocku.ca/humanities/departments-and-centres/history/faculty-staff/behnaz-mirzai