Research Interests

Colonial discourse analysis; modern monsters, zombies and imperial haunting; apocalyptic narratives; critical whiteness studies; comedy and social change; subversion of Islamophobic stereotypes; Freirian dialogue; somatics, healing and social justice; ableism in alternative healing arts; expanded present time perspective; nonviolent social movements; resistance to militarism and US empire; dominant narratives of space colonization; white supremacy in environmental conservation; ancestral recovery and anti-racism; interdependence of social justice and the environment; Anthropocene linguistic innovation.

Biography

Zara has taught in the Interdisciplinary Studies Bachelor of Arts at CIIS since 2011, and has been a guest teacher in the MFA program. She has taught at Sofia University, Sonoma State University and San Francisco State University, and given presentations and led workshops at schools across the Bay Area. Zara is the faculty advisor for the CIIS student group CAWARC (Committed and Aspiring White Anti-Racist Circle). She is passionate about forms of creative facilitation to cultivate critical thinking skills, make unexamined bias conscious, inspire artistic reflection, deepen somatic awareness and build alliances across differences. As an educator Zara works to support a context of curiosity, critical reflection and compassion that supports skilled navigation and justice-oriented care for the diverse worlds we inhabit.

Zara is a founding core consultant, facilitator and curriculum designer and the current director of Partners for Collaborative Change, which supports organizations to become more equitable through anti-oppression facilitation and coaching. PFCC has a dedicated focus on the interdependence of social justice and the environment, and supports community-driven climate resilience planning through participatory action research curriculum. She co-founded the White Noise Collective, an anti-racist feminist training and resource organization which supported investigation and transformation of patterns common at the intersection of whiteness and gender marginalization. Her organizational work centers liberatory methodologies of popular education, Theatre of the Oppressed, politicized dialogue and creative praxis.

For the last twenty five years she has been a bodyworker both in private practice and community health centers. Zara is an instructor at McKinnon Body Therapy Center, where she teaches classes on fundamentals of Western massage, anatomy and physiology, unlearning ableism, and decision making processes working with people with complex health conditions.

More about her work can be found here. 

Education

M.A. in Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation from CIIS

B.A. in Religious Studies from University of California at Berkeley

Bodywork education at Body Therapy Center, the Chi Nei Tsang Institute, Esalen Institute and McKinnon Body Therapy Center

Courses

Introduction to Social Ecologies

Self and Society

Modern Perspectives

Integral Learning

Community and Culture

Knowledge and Inquiry

Research Writing

Global Studies

Social Change

Senior Project

Art and Social Change

Dialogue and Community Development

Interdisciplinary Pedagogy

Spiritual Activism and Social Transformation

Publications

Zimbardo, Z. (2018) English version: “Monstrous mirrors of the zombie pandemic”/“Specchi mostruosi della pandemia zombie”, Visioni dell’apocalisse: L’immaginario cinematografico della fine del mondo, Ed. Stella Marega, Milan: Mimesis.

Zimbardo, Z., McDermott R., Zimbardo, Philip P. G. (2017) “A New Measure of the Expanded Present Time Perspective”, Time Perspective: Theory and Practice, Eds. Aleksandra Kostic and Derek Chadee, London: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Zimbardo, Z. (2015) It Is Easier to Imagine the Zombie Apocalypse Than to Imagine the End of Capitalism, in Censored 2015: Inspiring We the People, Eds. Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth. New York: Seven Stories Press. 

Zimbardo, Z. and Mesbah, T. (2014) Technologies and Ecologies of War Censored 2014: Fearless Speech in Fateful Times, edited by Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth. New York: Seven Stories Press. 

Zimbardo, Z. (2014) Cultural Politics of Humor in (De)Normalizing Islamophobic Stereotypes, Islamophobia Studies Journal, vol. 2 issue 1, U.C. Berkeley, Spring 2014.

Zimbardo, Z. (2014) Thinking Twice: Uses of Comedy to Challenge Islamophobic Stereotypes in Understanding and Dismantling Privilege, “Resistance to Teaching Anti-Racism” special edition, vol. 4, no. 2 2014.

Zimbardo, Z. (2011) Short essays on whiteness, assimilation, and anti-racist alliance in Let’s Get Real: What People of Color Can’t Say and Whites Won’t Ask About Racism, Ed. Lee Mun Wah. Berkeley: StirFry Seminars & Consulting. 

Zimbardo, Z. (2008) Scambio fra Culture Come Strategia di Cambiamento Sociale Nonviolento/Cross-cultural Exchange as a Strategy of Nonviolent Social Change, conference ACTA. 

Zimbardo, Z. Review of Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow. New York: Crown Publishers 2012. Published in Fellowship Magazine Vol. 77, No. 7-12 Summer 2013.

Zimbardo, Z. “Disarming the Teaching of Middle East History: Dual Narrative Israeli-Palestinian Textbooks” Fellowship Magazine Vol. 76, No. 1-3 Fall 2009.

Zimbardo, Z. Review of The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do To Stop It by Antonia Juhasz. William Morrow: New York 2008. Published in Fellowship Magazine Vol. 75, No. 1-3, 4-6 Winter/Spring 2009.

Zimbardo, Z. Review of Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War and Build a Better World by Aimee Allison and David Solnit. Seven Stories Press 2007. Published in Fellowship Magazine Vol. 73, No. 10-12 Winter 2008.

Zimbardo, Z. Review of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes. W.W. Norton & Company: New York 2008. Published in Fellowship Magazine Vol. 74, No. 4-6, 7-9 Summer/Fall 2008.

Zimbardo, Z. Review of A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance by Mary Elizabeth King. Nation Books 2007. Published in Fellowship Magazine Vol. 74, No. 1-3 Spring 2008.

Zimbardo, Z. “Flowers and Bananas”: a reflective piece from the FOR (Fellowship of Reconciliation) Colombia delegation on free trade, the U.S.-Colombia relationship, and gendered labor. Published in Witness Magazine. Fall 2008.