I am passionate about teaching. Combining this passion with meticulous research, critical reflection, and radical care has turned teaching into a mutually transformative experience, for me and the students. Central to my pedagogy is fostering critical spatial approaches to examine otherwise complex global processes, especially unequal constellations of power and knowledge that constitute the world’s geography.
As a first-generation college graduate and socioeconomically marginalized Kurdish minority scholar from a peripheral region of Iran, questions of diversity, equity, and inclusion have long been integral to my teaching. My pedagogy aims to create welcoming classrooms where all students receive equal access, respect, and opportunity. My approach especially seeks to empower students from historically underprivileged groups, races, genders, sexualities, social classes, and nationalities. Empowering means reflexive, persistent, critical, and comprehensive efforts to center the voices of marginalized groups and communities.
My experiences with learning English and embodying more than one ‘culture’ have especially enabled me to connect with the challenges faced by diverse groups of students, including international and non-Anglophone students. Rather than merely transcribing words, my cultural and linguistic objectives in pedagogy have sought to translate worlds, merging different worlds to create ontologically plural spaces of learning.
I have taught several courses at the University of Oregon, including:
Geog. 410/510: Power, Culture & Place
Geog. 343: Society, Culture & Place
Geog. 342: Geographies of Globalization & Development
Geog. 209: Geography of the Middle East & North Africa
Geog. 201: World Regional Geography
Geog. 142: Introduction to Human Geography
Over the years, students have been major pedagogic partners in my courses, contributing to the classes and my academic development with their feedback. Below is a brief summary of my students’ anonymous comments:
*Disclaimer: I feel conflicted about posting my students’ feedback here. However, my objective is to showcase my pedagogic competence and values, reflected in my students’ words. I hope this is helpful to future students, colleagues, and potential employers.
Geog. 209: Geography of the Middle East & North Africa:
“Sanan is very articulate, prepared and knowledgeable. He is approachable, designs good assignments and has a sense of humor during lecture, which is always enjoyable. It impressed me that he learned everyone’s name in such a large class”
“He is one of the best professors I have had during my four years in college. He is exceptional at explaining guidelines for assignments and he showed his passion for the subject in every lecture”
“I think this should be a required class for all incoming freshmen because the topics in this class are extremely important for many other classes at school and I believe it is very important information to learn especially with current events in this country and abroad.”
“I love how passionate about the material you covered in class. This made it easy to sink into the material. You were always vary helpful and informative. I learned a lot in this class and I also was able to develop my research skills”
“He was a great instructor and I learned a lot about the middle east. His class was very engaging and he overall was just a really great professor. I would highly recommend his classes to other students.”
Geog. 343: Society, Culture & Place:
“Sanan is a wonderful professor. Caring, knows the material. Really puts his heart into teaching.”
“Professor Moradi is focused on providing materials and prompts that promote and facilitate learning and understanding of the world with moderation, providing an unbiased and equitable narration over the course. Overall, I would recommend this course to peers and I commend Professor Moradi for his efforts to provide an engaging class despite this term’s [COVID] circumstances.”
“I always appreciate Sanan’s input and opinions–in fact, I think having a foreigner teach this course gives the students a fresher perspective on their own culture and society.”
“I honestly think this class was the best one I took this semester and Sanan did an amazing job talking about sensitive topic with tact and without displaying bias.”
“Sanan is a great instructor. He really takes his time to explain concepts and I find that very helpful. He also is great at using real world examples to explain concepts we are learning about. I also appreciate the fact that he really loves what he does. He cares about geography and I think that is great because he really tries to help students understand it. I can tell he cares about students.”