Unita Ahdifard
BA (UofT), MA (UofT), PhD (UC Santa Barbara)
Unita completed her Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a focus on early modern women’s travel narratives, and a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Center for 17th & 18th- Century Studies at the UCLA Clark Library. She is currently an instructor in the department of English at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and teaches courses on composition, introduction to literature, women’s writing, travel writing, and 18th/19th-century literature. Her research has been published in the Canadian Review for Comparative Literature (forthcoming), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing, and Studies in Travel Writing. Prior to joining KPU, Unita was a member of the Communications and Public Affairs team at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where she wrote articles for the public on women’s lives in the ancient world, from the worship of Nubian goddess Hathor to ancient Roman marriage rituals. As part of the Getty’s partnership with Google Arts & Culture, she also created digital exhibitions on the eighteenth-century Haitian-French art model Joseph as well as a survey of women artists featured at the Getty.
Courses taught
- ENGL 1100: Introduction to University Writing
- ENGL 1202: Reading and Writing About Selected Topics
- ENGL 1204: Reading and Writing About Genre: An Introduction to Literature
- ENGL 3325: Eighteenth-Century Literature
- ENGL 3360: Women Writers
- ENGL 3370: Life Writing
Areas of Interest
The long eighteenth century, Romanticism, nineteenth-century studies, travel writing, women writers, Persianate literature, public humanities
Scholarly Work
- “Grand Tours and Great Travails: Captivity, Leisure, and Orientalism in the Travel Narratives of Elizabeth Marsh.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. 2025 (Forthcoming).
- “Early Modern Women and Travel.” 6,000 word entry. Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing. 2022.
- “‘Each Race in its Proper Sphere’: Understanding Ottoman Nation, Race, and Class in Demetra Vaka Brown’s The Unveiled Ladies of Stanboul and Leila Ahmed’s A Border Passage.” Studies in Travel Writing. 2021.
Academic Website: www.unitaahdifard.com