Feminist Scholars and Activists Network (FSAN)
The Feminist Scholars and Activists Network (FSAN) is a group of researchers, academics, activists, and community members at the SdBI.
FSAN supports networking between members, sharing information and resources, and staying connected to the SdBI. In addition to participation on the SdBI-FSAN listserv, members are also invited to:
- attend the SdBI Annual General Meeting,
- participate in SdBI related events, and
- serve as a guest speaker in SdBI courses.
Eligibility
Membership is open to anyone aligned with the feminist values of the SdBI and is determined through nomination and approval at the SdBI Council.
How to apply
To submit your self-nomination to the SdBI Council, please complete the application form.
Review of new nominations occurs monthly from September through May and can take up to 2 months. If approved, membership is ongoing until a member unsubscribes from the listserv and/or is removed from the website.
Access to the Concordia library
FSAN members can request access to the Concordia Library and purchase their membership by completing the External Community Registration form for members of the general public.
Members
Meet members of the Feminist Scholars and Activists Network at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute.
Farida Abla
Farida has expertise in literature, autobiography, diaspora communities, women's life writings, feminist theory, translation, and teaching. She holds a PhD in Humanities from Concordia University. She is a certified translator (OTTIAQ & STIBC). She also has extensive experience teaching English, and she taught “Feminism & Autobiography” at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute in 2019.
Her doctoral thesis, entitled Diasporic Iranian Women’s Life Writing: An Analysis Using a Transnational Feminist Lens, focuses on deconstructing the works of Iranian Women in diaspora in the US and Canada where they wrote autobiographies in English.
Jade Almeida
Originally from Guadeloupe, Jade Almeida (she/her) completed her PhD in Sociology under the supervision of Sirma Bilge. Her dissertation focuses on Black women who love women: resistance to intersecting power relations. As a content creator, she shares training on her website around issues related to anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and anti-carceral struggles, among others.
In 2023, she co-founded Harambec—a revival of the Black feminist collective—alongside Pauline Lomami and Marlihan Lopez, and has served as its director since 2024. She teaches in sociology, social work, and sexology as a lecturer at several universities, including UQAM, UQO, and Concordia. Outside of all that, her passions include eating... and stopping her rabbit from eating her books.
Sima Aprahamian
Sima Aprahamian holds a doctoral degree in Anthropology granted at McGill University. She is currently working on the following projects: a virtual museum of objects that have survived the Armenian Genocide and are in Canada and their stories; narratives of Displacement; and Ottoman women's movement(s).
Her doctoral dissertation (based on fieldwork in the Beka’a valley of Lebanon, funded by SSHRC) was entitled The Inhabitants of Haouch Moussa. She has been organizing several panels in academic conferences over the years on literary responses to genocide, feminist perspectives on genocide, as well as publishing and presenting papers on identity issues, gender and genocide.
Dolores Chew
Dolores Chew, originally from Kolkata, India, is an historian, teacher and activist based in Montreal where she teaches at Marianopolis College and is an Affiliate of the Simone de Beauvoir University. She is a member of Montreal's South Asian Women's Community Centre, a service, support and advocacy organization, which she helped found in 1981.
She is also active in several other South Asian diasporic organizations. Anti-racist feminist engagement informs what she does which includes women and genocide (Gujarat, India), gender representations and multiraciality (Anglo-Indians; Colonial and Post-Colonial) and feminism and intersectionality (Québec and Canada).
Maihemuti Dil Dilimulati
Dil is a scholar and educator whose work explores migration, equity, and social justice through decolonial, anti-racist, and intersectional lenses. His research focuses on how displacement, surveillance, and political violence shape the lives and identities of diasporic communities, with particular attention to gendered experiences and collective responses.
He holds a PhD from McGill University and recently completed postdoctoral research at Concordia. He also teaches in teacher education programs, supporting future educators in developing inclusive approaches to citizenship, pluralism, and cultural narratives in Quebec and beyond.
Dorothy Geller
Dorothy Geller performs dissonant, anti-imperialist and speculative stories and songs as Dora Bleu. She has composed, collaborated on and released works throughout Europe and North America, using her transmissions to give a space to express affect, social collapse, trauma and materiality.
She also co-organizes multi-disciplinary workshops, performances and discussions with the Spectral Collective. She is currently a founding member of Drift, a series of discussions and workshops dedicated to the resilience of thinking, affect and education as distinct from emerging technology. She writes for Women in and Beyond the Global.
Shaheen Akhter Munir
I am a lawyer, researcher, author, and human rights activist from Bangladesh, based in Montreal for nearly three decades. With degrees in Political Science and Law from the University of Dhaka, I have spent over forty years advancing women’s rights in Bangladesh and within Montreal’s South Asian communities.
My work bridges legal advocacy, feminist research, and community engagement. I served as Research Associate (2017–2022) and Affiliate Assistant Professor (2022–2023) at Concordia University’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute. As an artist, my compassionate vision continues to guide my creative practice, honored with Honourable Mention Awards from the Women Art Society of Montreal in 2022 and 2025.
Geneviève Rail
Geneviève Rail received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has taught courses related to women’s bodies, physical activity and health at Laurentian University (1986-1991), the University of Ottawa (1991 to 2009), and the Simone de Beauvoir Institute (2009-2019). She was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor Emerita by Concordia University in 2020.
A specialist of Feminist Cultural Studies of Health, her research and activism has centered on women’s experiences of body-related institutions (e.g., health industries and systems, pharmaceutical industry). Favoring a feminist, poststructuralist, decolonial and queer approach, she has authored over 100 articles or book chapters and has been a keynote speaker in more than 50 national or international conferences.
Her last projects focused on fatness and body shaming, on the problems with HPV vaccination, and on breast and gynecological cancer care for 2SLGBTQ+ persons. She is on the international advisory board of Re-Check, an independent organization specialized in investigating health interventions and contributing to projects that are at the intersection of academic research in health and investigative journalism.
Sandra Smele
Sandra Smele is a sociologist who currently works as the Coordinator of Expertise in Inclusive Aging, Diversity, Health and Well-Being at the Centre for Research and Expertise in Social Gerontology. She has conducted and contributed to research on social gerontology, gender, care, sexuality, disability, racism and abuse for over a decade.
