dr. Younes Saramifar, Dr

I am an interdisciplinary scholar working on inhumanities and pursuing violence and transgression that emerge when objects, bodies and concepts are reaped from their contexts. My research follows violence, piety and poetics of body through approaches of material religion, critical thinking and speculative realism. My research interests begin with the mundane affairs of everyday life and end up in the weirdest and lesser-explored corners of existence. So be aware of the madness before coming closer.

I have been educated and worked internationally. Undergraduates in Iran, postgraduate and my first PhD (2016, passed without revision) in India. I was trained by prominent subaltern feminist sociologist Sharmila Rege as well as critical thinkers such as Professor Deepak Mehta then I did a second PhD (2020, Cum Laude) in Cultural Anthropology in the Netherlands to prove my worth to the "white academia". 

You can watch my work on violence here

1. I take part in the editorial team of American Ethnologist & the Journal of Politics, Religion and Ideology 
2. the board member and convenor of the Migration & Diversity Research Center
3. I coordinate the Decolonial Lecture Series (watch here)

 I teach and coordinate courses at VU & Amsterdam University College:

I coordinate

• Migration, Integration & Diversity @Amsterdam University College
• Inequality and Poverty @ Amsterdam University College

I teach

• Medical Anthropology @  Amsterdam University College
• Matters of Pleasure MA Specialised Tutorial @ History Dept
• History & Social Sciences @ History Dept 
• Personal is Political @ History Dept

I am currently supervising these PhD candidates:

• Nazar Abdulazeez on Kurdish-Syrian Asylum Seekers and Belonging in Iraqi Kurdistan
• Nebil Kusmallah on Narratives of Displacement: Exploring the Lives and Aspirations Unaccompanied Eritrean Refugee Minors in NL
• Natalia Guzevataya on Decolonization, Art and politics in the contemporary Ukraine

• Nomination for Teacher Talent Prize 2016-2017, FSW, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• Nomination for Teacher Talent Prize 2017-2018, FSW, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• Peter Baehr Prize for Best Research proposal 2017
• Vrije Universiteit Research Fellowship 
•  Humboldt University fellowship
• Vrije Universiteit, FSW, Best doctoral dissertation award
• Niels Stensen University Fellowship @ Aarhus University 

No ancillary activities

Ancillary activities are updated daily

• Einstein Foundation Berlin, Reserach Grant 
• Gerda Henkel Foundation, Research Grant