Halima Kazem, Ph.D., is a scholar and historian of feminism, gender, and sexuality working at the intersection of human rights, conflict, media, and Islamic societies. She served as Associate Director of Stanford's Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and is now a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where she built a 450-hour oral history archive of the US-Afghan war. Her first book, A Feminist History of Afghanistan: Resisting the Erasure of Women, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury, and she is directing a documentary film on gender apartheid supported in part by the Malala Fund. Her scholarship draws on two decades of journalism and documentary filmmaking across Afghanistan, Turkey, New Zealand, and the United States, bringing the craft of storytelling to the study of war, memory, and women's resistance.
Latest Work
Current projects across scholarship, film, and media, at the intersection of gender, conflict, human rights, and the history of Afghanistan.
A Feminist History of Afghanistan
A feminist reckoning with how Afghan women have been written out of their history, and how they resist that erasure. Forthcoming from Bloomsbury.
Gender Apartheid Volume
A special edition I co-edited and co-curated for the Stanford Journal of International Law and the Stanford Journal on International Affairs, on gender apartheid as an emerging legal framework.
Documentary Film
A film on gender apartheid, supported in part by the Malala Fund and developed with the End Gender Apartheid campaign. In production.
The HART Oral History Archive
A 450-hour oral history archive of the US-Afghan war at the Hoover Institution, built from firsthand testimony of those who lived it.
Impossible Choices
A podcast drawn from the HART archive, telling the stories of Afghans who faced impossible decisions during and after the war.
Essays for Hoover
Ongoing essays on Afghanistan, memory, and women's resistance, published through the Hoover Institution's Library and Archives.
Recent Events and News
Halima receives many requests to be interviewed by journalists writing about Afghanistan, media, human rights, and feminism. She also gives lectures, presentations, and consults on books, films, and research projects. For speaker or interview requests, send an email to Halima_Kazem@yahoo.com
