About Me

Leila M. Pazargadi is an Associate Professor of English at Nevada State College, where she is currently teaching composition, literature, and social justice courses on gender, immigration, ethnic American identity, resistance and revolution, and postcolonial literature. She received her Doctorate of Philosophy in Comparative Literature with a certification in Gender Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2012. She also received her Master of Arts in Comparative Literature from UCLA in 2007 and her Bachelor of Arts in English and Comparative Literary Studies from Occidental College in 2004.  In 2014, she was one of five recipients of Occidental College’s Alumni of the Year, honored as the Erica J. Murray ’01 Young Alumna seal awardee for her teaching and service efforts. In 2018, she received Nevada State College's Faculty Award for her teaching efforts in the humanities.

At NSC, she is most proud of her work co-founding the Nepantla Program and serving as Director of its Summer Bridge. This six-week intensive program aims to empower first-generation and underrepresented students to fulfill their academic and service potential as part of their college-going experience. Ultimately, it is Nepantla’s hope that students carve out an alternative space in higher education by giving back, serving the community, and embracing cultural difference as a place of knowledge and power.  Leila has served as Director of the Nepantla Summer Bridge at NSC since 2012 and she possesses several years experience teaching for UCLA’s Freshman Summer Program in the Academic Advancement Program, before consulting and lecturing for Vrije University’s Summercouse in Amsterdam. In 2014, Leila received Nevada State College’s iTeach Heritage Award for her work on the Nepantla Program and for her commitment to diversity initiatives. The Nepantla team’s efforts were recognized by ¡Excelencia! In Education, which granted the program a 2014 Honorable Mention as an exemplary new initiative.

In terms of her research, Leila co-authored “Picturing Qajar Persia: A Gift to Major-General Henry Creswicke Rawlinson” with Dr. Frances Terpak in the Getty Research Journal, which discusses the gifting of Luigi Pesce’s photograph album depicting 19th century Persia to Henry Creswicke Rawlinson.  Additionally, she has published the following articles and book reviews concerning Middle Eastern literary studies and autobiographical studies: "Re/calling Scheherazad: Voicing Agency in Mohja Kahf’s Poetry,"  "Unfixing the Autobiographical Subject: Fragmentation as Aesthetics and Identity in Rabih Alameddine’s I, the Divine," book review of Hamid Dabashi's Persophilia, amongst others. She is currently researching a number of articles in addition to working on her manuscript, Mosaics of Identity: Reading Muslim Women’s Memoirs From Across the Diaspora, which comparatively discusses Iranian American and Arab American women writers publishing autobiographical material in fiction and nonfiction after 9/11. 

Working in English, Persian, and French, Leila has presented at many academic conferences held nationally and internationally by the University of Clermont-Ferrand, Modern Language Association, National Women’s Studies Association, Middle Eastern Studies Association, American Comparative Literature Association and the International Society for Iranian Studies. Additionally, she has taught for UCLA, California State Long Beach, Occidental College, the UC Center for Study Abroad in Paris, and Vrije University in Amsterdam before joining Nevada State College in 2012.

Leila is very active in her advocacy work. In 2017, she co-wrote a bill (SB107) with Andreana Franco and Senator Richard Segerblom to introduce Ethnic Studies courses as a prerequisite for graduation from all Nevada high schools. The bill was passed during the 2017 NV legislation, recommending that the courses be offered. Additionally, served as the president of NSC's Nevada Faculty Alliance advocacy chapter between 2017-2019. 

In addition to teaching and researching, she enjoys painting, practicing yoga, DJing world music, and traveling. Currently, she is on sabbatical as a visiting scholar at UCLA, where she is researching her book.