Dr Siavash Bakhtiar
I am currently a Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Westminster. Before joining Westminster in 2020, I was a Language Instructor at Queen Mary University of London, where I taught classes on different aspects of the French language at all undergraduate levels. I hold a PhD in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies from the University of Nottingham, where I was a Teaching Associate simultaneously in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures and the Department of Media and Visual Studies.
I grew up in Brussels, where I have completed my BA and MA in Modern Literatures and Languages at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. In 2013, I was granted a teaching qualification of agrégé de langues et lettres modernes from the same institution. In 2020, I have completed the ADEPT programme, which allowed me gaining fellowship with the Higher Education Academy.
My research is interdisciplinary and technology oriented. I am interested in the non-human agents that constitute our everyday life. My PhD thesis aimed to establish a conversation between French philosopher Bruno Latour and the work of contemporary thinkers to articulate a critical theory about everyday life technologies. Therefore, I am interested in studying the agency of objects, from the toothbrush to the smartphone, and their participation in how we communicate and constitute symbolic entities such as 'society,' 'culture,' 'class' and 'gender identities.'
I am also interested in a critical sociology of education and the narratives and practices that concern the decolonisation process of educational and political institutions.