Zhinia Noorian

Zhinia Noorian is a Postdoc candidate for the ERC-Advanced Grant “Beyond Sharia: The Role of Sufism in Shaping Islam”, working on the project “Feminising Masculinity: Negotiating Gender Norms”. She finished her PhD dissertation at Utrecht University on the poetry and reception of Parvīn Iᶜtiṣāmī (1907-1941), an Iranian female poet who left an enduring mark on the literary and religious culture of Iran in the early 20th century through transgressing the socio-cultural norms of her patriarchal society. As a postdoc researcher, she will investigate the homoerotic aspect of the Sufi saints, examining how and why Sufi saints assumed a feminine voice and transgressed the strict gender norms set by the sharia law in Islamic societies.