Dr. Faiza Hirji is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Media Arts at McMaster University. Her research interests include media representation of race, religion, ethnicity and gender, use of media in the construction of identity, and the importance of media within diasporic/transnational communities. Her book, Dreaming in Canadian: South Asian Youth, Bollywood and Belonging, was published in 2010 by UBC Press. Along with Sikata Banerjee and Rina Verma Williams, Faiza co-edited a 2021 special issue of Global Media Journal – Canadian Edition on Bollywood, Power and Politics. She is also the co-editor (with Yasmin Jiwani and Kirsten McAllister) of a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Communication on the topic of racism and colonialism in Canadian communication studies, published in 2022. She is currently working on a project about media representation of Muslim women, and is also a co-director on a SSHRC-funded project on intersectional community communications as critical EDI work.
Since 2022, she has been serving as the Vice President of the Canadian Communication Association, and was previously a member at large. She has also served on the Hamilton Council of Aging Board of Directors (2015-2021).
