Tamar Shirinian

Tamar Shirinian is an Assistant Professor in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, specializing in queer and feminist theory, postsocialist transformation, and political economy. With a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in Armenia since 2010, she examines intersections of gender, sexuality, nationalism, and geopolitical shifts.

• Education
  • B.A. in Gender and Women’s Studies, University of California – Berkeley (2007)
  • M.A. and Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology, Duke University (2012, 2016)
  • Certificate in Feminist Studies from Duke University (2016)

Her research spans Armenian studies, geopolitical sovereignty, digital cultures, and trauma recovery. She co-edits the ‘Third Space’ section of the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies and explores psychological anthropology and medical anthropology in U.S. contexts.

Recent publications focus on Armenian LGBTQ+ civil society, feminist pedagogy, and the moral implications of postsocialist transitions. Her work challenges linear progress narratives in postsocialist feminism while excavating Soviet-era intellectual genealogies.

Current projects include oral histories of Soviet-era political imaginaries and critiques of neoliberalism’s impact on Armenian social reproduction. Fieldwork-based collaborations with Armenian activists inform her analysis of geopolitical and intimate power structures.