The University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Social Sciences and Carleton University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are pleased to announce that Professor Ummni Khan has been named to the Joint Chair in Women’s Studies, University of Ottawa and Carleton University. We congratulate Dr. Khan and are convinced that she will develop a research program and an array of academic activities that will be engaging.
As the incumbent of the Joint Chair in Women’s Studies, University of Ottawa and Carleton University, Professor Khan’s responsibilities will include teaching, engaging in research and participating in appropriate committees and events on both campuses. She will also act as a resource person on women’s issues and feminist research at both universities. Her role will also involve contact with local, regional, national and international feminist educational and community-based organizations.
Professor Khan holds an S.J.D in Law from the University of Toronto and is an Associate Professor at Carleton University in the Department of Law and Legal Studies. Her research focuses on the socio-legal construction of stigmatized sexual practices. Her book, Vicarious Kinks: Sadomasochism in the Socio-Legal Imaginary (2014), examines the ways that criminal regulation of consensual SM rests on problematic ideological claims that engage with psychiatry, anti-sm feminism and film. Her current SHHRC-funded project addresses the regulation of sex trade clients. In 2016, she was awarded the Faculty of Public Affairs Research Excellence Award.
Her writing often integrates experimental elements into her scholarly analysis, including fictional scenarios and auto-ethnographic reflection. She teaches a wide variety of classes, from first year courses to graduate seminars, related to legal studies, sexuality, methodology, law and literature, deviance, criminal justice, critical security and surveillance studies. She is thrilled to be Joint Chair of Women’s Studies for the 2016-2018 term!