Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi
Canadian professor, program director (born 1957)
Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi (Persian: محمد توکلی طرقی; born 1957) is an Iranian-born Canadian scholar, editor, author, professor, and program director. He is a professor of History and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, and he serves as the Director of Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Tavakoli-Targhi's areas of research include Iranian Studies, Middle Eastern history, Gender Studies, modernity, nationalism, Orientalism, and occidentalism.
Biography
Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi was born in 1957 in Tehran, Iran. He attended the University of Iowa, and received a BA degree (1980) in political science and an MA degree (1981) in history; and has a PhD (1988) in history from the University of Chicago.
He previously taught history courses at the Illinois State University from 1989 to 2003. He moved to the University of Toronto in 2004, where he is the first director of the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies. Starting in 2022, a multi-year research partnership was formed between the Encyclopædia Iranica and the University of Toronto, under Tavakoli-Targhi's leadership.
Tavakoli-Targhi has served as an editor including at the academic journal, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East from 2001 until 2012; and at Iran Nameh from 2011 until 2015. He was previously served as the president of the International Society for Iranian Studies in 2009 to 2010.
The public source identifies “Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi” as canadian professor, program director (born 1957). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mohamad, Tavakoli-Targhi and Canadian.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi”, the useful work is to connect “canadian professor, program director (born 1957)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q31067401. VIAF identifies the subject as 74096947. The Library of Congress control number is n00050918. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957, 1980, 1981 and 1988.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi primary sources, Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi archive and Mohamad research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.