Assistant Professor of Law
E-mail: sharafi@wisc.edu
Telephone: (608)265-8428
Office: Room 6112, Law School
Education:
PhD (History), Princeton University (2006)
BCL (Law), Oxford University (1999)
BA (Law), Cambridge University (1998)
BA (History), McGill University (1996)
Recently Taught Courses
711 Contracts
Biography
Mitra Sharafi studies the history of law in colonial India. She holds two UK law degrees and a doctorate in history. At the UW Law School, she teaches Contracts I to first-year law students. She is also part of UW's Legal Studies program, an interdisciplinary undergraduate major that combines law with the humanities and social sciences. Sharafi teaches two Legal Studies courses: "Legal Pluralism" and "Law and Colonialism." Sharafi is affiliated with the History Department, and is involved with the UW Center for South Asia.
Having grown up in Canada with an Iranian father and American mother, Sharafi's personal interest in comparative cultures led her to India, where the state-run "personal law" system applies the religious legal traditions of Hindu, Muslim, and other ethno-religious communities. Her work takes her frequently to India, particularly to Mumbai and Gujarat. Sharafi spent part of 2009-10 at the Bombay High Court, completing archival research for her current book project on the legal culture of the Parsis (or Zoroastrians) of British India. Her next big project will be a study of medical jurisprudence in colonial South Asia.
