October 19, 2023
Research by Sara Hassani, Ph.D., recognized with national political science award
By Martha Young
Sara Hassani, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science and of women’s and gender studies at Providence College, received the prestigious Leo Strauss Award from the American Political Science Association for her dissertation, “Cloistered Infernos: The Politics of Self-Immolation in the Persian Belt.”
The award is presented annually to honor the best doctoral dissertation in political philosophy. In addition to the Strauss award, Hassani received the 2023 Honorable Mention Award for best dissertation from the organization’s Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section.
Hassani was raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, years after her family fled Iran in the 1980s. While living far from the region where self-immolation cases are not uncommon, she learned about the scale of the issue through conversations with her grandmother, including stories of how her family had been personally affected by the act of self-destructive violence.
Hassani began researching the topic in 2011. While pursuing her doctorate at the New School for Social Research in New York, she conducted field research on the topic in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and began writing her 500-page dissertation in 2019.
“Self-immolation doesn’t often happen in the United States,” Hassani said. “These are self-destructive, often politically shaped acts of protest expressing the lack of women’s rights and agency within the family, society, and polity.”
The American Political Science Association committee described Hassani’s work as “an extraordinary dissertation distinguished by its scope, originality, and insight.”
“Through rigorous historical research and painstakingly conducted interviews, Cloistered Infernos carefully contextualizes and reconstructs the experience of those women who are typically dismissed as irrational in the official discourse and largely neglected by Western scholars,” they wrote. “A stunning example of political theory from the ground up and outside the Western canon, Hassani’s Cloistered Infernos deepens our understanding of power, oppression, and resistance, and equally important, expands the possibilities of political theory.”
Since joining the PC faculty in 2022, Hassani’s dissertation has been a bridge to her interdisciplinary teaching of political science and women’s and gender studies courses. Her research focuses on feminist, intersectional, and critical theories of gender, agency, state, policing, and protest, with a focus on the relationships between gender, self-destructive, and political forms of violence.
“My students are curious and engaged about the cross-section of political science and women’s studies,” Hasani said. “What a time we’re living in to examine these dynamics on the world’s stage.”
