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I received my PhD in Sociology from York University (Toronto) in 2007 and my MA in Sociology from the University of Alberta in 1998. My BA is from Queen’s University (Kingston).
During 2013, I was a visiting professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan. In 2008, I was a visiting fellow at the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World in Leiden, The Netherlands, and in 2006, I was an invited junior fellow at the Summer Academy on ‘Islam and the Repositioning of Religion’ at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, Germany.
A social theorist at heart, I am interested in religion, especially Islam, secularism, liberalism, modernity and the cultural side of globalization. I engage with the assumptions underlying knowledge of the human condition as expressed in the human sciences and in religions. Currently, I am investigating how hermeneutics lends itself to providing interpretations of religious texts and practices that emphasize immanence, critique and recognition of historical distance.
On the empirical side, I focus on Muslims in western societies and increasingly on cultural changes in Pakistani society.
- Laurier Teaching Award for Excellence in Internationalization, 2017
- Laurier Merit Award 2011
I am interested in supervising graduate students in areas pertaining to Islam and secularism; hermeneutics; philosophy and methodology of the human sciences; cultural aspects of Pakistani society.
My undergraduate teaching generally focuses on issues pertaining to inter-cultural understanding and pluralism, and my signature course is a fourth-year seminar (GS422) entitled Dialogue and Critique in an Age of Terror.
- Zaidi, Ali. "Quranic Hermeneutics as a Form of Modern Religiosity", in Muslims Between Conformity and Critique. Plural Publications, 2016.
- Zaidi, Ali. Islam, Modernity and the Human Sciences. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
- Zaidi, Ali. “Islam, Modernité et Sciences Humaines. Les Promesses de la Connaissance Dialogique” in L'Islam et l'Occident. Biopsies d'un Dialogue. Lise Garon, Azzedine G. Mansour and El-Mostafa Chadli (eds.), Québec City: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2008.
- Zaidi, Ali. “A Critical Misunderstanding: Islam and Dialogue in the Human Sciences”, International Sociology. 2007.
- Zaidi, Ali. “Muslim Reconstructions of Knowledge and the Re-Enchantment of Modernity”, Theory, Culture and Society. 2006.
Fall 2017: Introduction to Global Studies (GS101a)
Winter 2018: Ethical Encounters (GS421/RE...); Beauty in Muslim Contexts (MZ300c)
Contact Info:
Office location: DAWB 5-114 (Dr. Alvin Woods Building, Waterloo Campus)
Office hours:
Spring/Summer 2017:By appointment
Languages spoken: Urdu/Hindi