Robab Vaziri is a Ph.D. student in political science at Columbia University. She specializes in political theory, with research interests in Marxism and feminism. Within Marxism, she is most interested in value-form analysis.
At Johns Hopkins University, Ms. Vaziri obtained her M.A. in philosophy, a B.A. in both philosophy and political science, and a minor in women, gender, & sexuality studies (Phi Beta Kappa). Before starting her Ph.D. at Columbia, she was awarded the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute Grant, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Summer Program Grant, the Johns Hopkins Life Design Lab Grant, and the Woodrow Wilson Research Fellowship Grant. Through the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, Ms. Vaziri researched the consent standard in Anglo-American rape law. She discovered how over-reliance on consent can obscure political and sexual inequities. When such inequities manifest themselves in the conditions under which consent is given, consent is no longer a genuine expression of autonomy. The merely formal justice of the consent standard must be complemented by justice in the more basic institutions of society.
