Professor Nacim Pak-Shiraz holds a Personal Chair in Cinema and Iran at the University of Edinburgh, where she has been reappointed as Head of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from January 2027.
Her research focuses on Iranian Cinema, visual and material culture, and the intersections of religion, gender, and performance in Middle Eastern media. She is the author of Shi‘i Islam in Iranian Cinema: Religion and Spirituality in Film, and the editor of Visualizing Iran: From Antiquity to the Present. Her publications cover a wide range of topics including Qur’anic representation, cinematic space, masculinity, popular culture, filmfarsi, and comedy, with articles appearing in Iranian Studies, Material Religion, the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, the Journal of Religion and Film, and other peer-reviewed volumes. She has also contributed chapters to edited collections published by Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, Yale University Press, Bloomsbury, Routledge, and Gingko Library. She has supervised 11 doctoral students to completion.
Professor Pak-Shiraz has held diverse academic leadership and governance roles at the University of Edinburgh. She served as Head of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from 2017 to 2021, a position she has been reappointed to from January 2027. She has also served on the University Senate and currently plays leading role in academic programme development and curriculum renewal.
Professor Pak-Shiraz has curated seven film festivals in Edinburgh, and served as a jury member and presenter at a number of international film festivals in the Czech Republic, Turkey and Iran.
