Shenila Khoja-Moolji

Shenila Khoja-Moolji is the Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani Associate Professor of Muslim Societies at Georgetown University. She is known for her scholarship on Muslims, gender, and Pakistan studies. She is a leading Shia Ismaili Muslim scholar.

Khoja-Moolji is the author of two books that have won awards from international academic associations: ''Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in Muslim South Asia'' and ''Sovereign Attachments: Masculinity, Muslimness, and Affective Politics in Pakistan''.

Early life and education

Khoja-Moolji grew up in Hyderabad, Pakistan. She received a scholarship from the United World Colleges to do an International Baccalaureate. She then earned an undergraduate degree from Brown University, a Masters from Harvard University, and a doctorate from Columbia University.

Career

Between 2016 and 2018, Khoja-Moolji was a postdoctoral and visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality and Women. In 2018, she joined the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies program at Bowdoin College, where she earned early tenure and promotion within four years. In 2022, Khoja-Moolji was appointed as the Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani Associate Professor of Muslim societies, a tenured and endowed chair position, at Georgetown University.

Khoja-Moolji is known for her theorizations of Muslim girlhood, which includes several articles that analyze the portrayal of Malala Yousafzai and the politics of international development campaigns.

Her first book, ''Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in Muslim South Asia'', published by the University of California Press (2018), is a genealogy of the ‘educated girl.’ The book shows how girl’s education is a site of struggle for multiple groups—from national to religious elites—through which they construct gender, class, and religious identities. The book was published in the Islamic Humanities open-access series. The book won the 2019 Jackie Kirk Outstanding Book Award from the Comparative and International Education Society.

Her second book, ''Sovereign Attachments: Masculinity, Muslimness, and Affective Politics in Pakistan'', also published the University of California Press (2021), re-theorizes sovereignty by drawing on affect, cultural, and religious studies. The book won the Best Book Award from the Theory section of the International Studies Association.

In 2019, Khoja-Moolji was elected to the South Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies.

Khoja-Moolji is the recipient of three career awards: the Emerging Scholar Award from the Muslim Philanthropy Initiative based at Indiana University; the Early Career Award for Community Engagement from the International Studies Association’s Feminist Theory and Gender Studies section; and the Early Career Award from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Khoja-Moolji regularly publishes in Al Jazeera and the Express Tribune to convey scholarly ideas to the public.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khoja-Moolji, Shenila
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Georgetown University faculty
Harvard University alumni
Brown University alumni
Columbia University alumni
Muslim writers
Women and education
21st-century Pakistani women writers
American religion academics
American scholars of Islam
Religious studies scholars
Women scholars of Islam
American Islamic studies scholars
20th-century Ismailis
Pakistani Ismailis
21st-century American women writers