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McGill.CA / Faculty of Law / Faculty Members

Vrinda Narain

Associate Professor

New Chancellor Day Hall
3644 Peel Street, room 607
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3A 1W9

514-398-4927 [Office]
vrinda.narain [at] mcgill.ca (Email)

Vrinda Narain

Focus online: (April 2011)
Download: Publications list [.docx] (April 2013)

Recent media mentions:

Biography

Professor Vrinda Narain’s research and teaching focus on constitutional law, social diversity andĚýfeministĚýlegal theory.

She is the author of two books: (University of Toronto Press, 2008) and (University of Toronto Press, 2001).

Professor Vrinda Narain is the 2017 recipient of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice’s Charles D. Gonthier Research Fellowship.She was Associate Dean, Academic, at the Faculty of Law from 2016 to 2019.

Community involvement

  • Women Living Under Muslim Laws executive board member ()
  • President, Executive Committee, South Asian Women’s Community Centre, Montreal (SAWCC)

Education

  • DCL (Ď㽶ĘÓƵ)Ěý
  • LLM (Ď㽶ĘÓƵ)Ěý
  • LLB Faculty of Law, (Delhi University)Ěý
  • BA (Hons) History (Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University)Ěý

Employment

  • Associate Dean, Academic, Faculty of Law, Ď㽶ĘÓƵ, 2016-2019
  • Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Ď㽶ĘÓƵ, 2015-present
  • Associate Professor, Faculty of Law & Faculty of Arts, Ď㽶ĘÓƵ, 2015-2016
  • Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law & Faculty of Arts, Ď㽶ĘÓƵ, 2009-2015
  • Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Ď㽶ĘÓƵ, 2008-2009
  • Boulton Fellow, Faculty of Law, Ď㽶ĘÓƵ, 2007-2008
  • Visiting Research Fellow, Asian Institute, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, 2006-2007

Areas of Interest

Constitutional law, feminist legal theory, social diversity and law, postcolonial studies and law, critical race theory.

Media

July 12, 2016, Vrinda Narain on The Current regarding the indictement of Canadian-Iranian scholar Homa Hoodfar, who has been detained in Evin prison since March 2016. Her segment runs from 2:00-9:15.

October 14, 2014, Interview [.mp3] on CJAD's The Exchange with Dave Kaufman on Malala Yousafzai receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

January 30, 2014, on Canadian Muslim hipsters defying stereotypes.

Publications

Books

  • Vrinda Narain and Mona Tajali, .Ěý© 2024ĚýRevival Press Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Vrinda Narain, . University of Toronto Press, 2008, 224 pp.
  • Vrinda Narain, . University of Toronto Press, 2001, 202 pp. Nominated for the Canadian Women’s Studies Association Book of the Year Award, 2003.

Refereed journal articles

  • Vrinda Narain “” published on The Conversation.
  • Vrinda Narain,, published in the UCLA Journal of Gender and Law.
  • Vrinda Narain, “” Supreme Court Law Review, 2nd Series (2021) Vol 102 pp 77-104.
  • Vrinda Narain, "," The Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Vol 5 (2021) pp 345-377.
  • Vrinda Narain, "," Columbia Journal of Race and Law Vol. 9:1 (2018) pp 53-93.
  • Vrinda Narain, "Postcolonial Constitutionalism i India: Complexities & Contradictions," Winter 2016. 25 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 107.
  • Link to .
  • Vrinda Narain, “Taking “Culture” out of Multiculturalism”, December 2013, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law.
  • LINK: Taking 'Culture' out of Multiculturalism [.pdf]
  • Vrinda Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India: Applying a Human Rights Framework."ĚýHuman Rights QuarterlyĚý35.1 (2013): 91-115.
  • LINK:
  • Vrinda Narain, “Water as a Fundamental Right: A Perspective from India”, Vermont Law Review, 2010 Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 917-926.
  • LINK:
  • “Muslim Women, Family Law and Equal Citizenship in India”, Journal for Semitics, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2007, pp. 498-517.
  • “Muslim Women’s Rights and the Accommodation of Difference”, University of Southern California Review of Law and Women’s Studies, Vol. 1, Fall 1998, pp. 43-72.

Other refereed articles and book chapters

  • Vrinda Narain, "Private Inequality and Public Religion: A Comment on Shayara Bano, India’s Triple Talaq Decision" in Muhammad Khalid Masud and Hana Jalloul Muro, eds,Ěý(London: World Scientific Europe, 2022).
  • Vrinda Narain, “Difference and Inclusion: Reframing Reasonable Accommodation” in Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice, ed,ĚýĚý(Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2021) pp 77-104.
  • Vrinda Narain, “Difference and Inclusion: Reframing Reasonable Accommodation” in Richard Albert, Paul Daly, and Vanessa A. MacDonnell eds., (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019).
  • Vrinda Narain, “Law, Gender, and Nation: Muslim Women and the Discontents of Legal Pluralism in India” in Jocelyne Cesari and Jose Casanova, eds.,ĚýIslam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)
  • LINK:
  • Vrinda Narain, “Transformatory Jurisprudence: The Supreme Court of India and Maintenance for Muslim Women”, in Leela Fernandes, ed., Handbook on Gender in South Asia Forthcoming (London: Routledge, 2014).
  • LINK:
  • Vrinda Narain, “Critical Multiculturalism” in Beverly Baines, Daphne Barak-Erez and Tsvi Kahana, eds., in : Global Perspectives (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2012). View chapter as PDF Chapter 20 – “Critical Multiculturalism”, pp. 377-392.

Research reports

  • Vrinda Narain, “The Potential of Human Dignity: Women in Religious Contexts”, p. 47-52, inĚýDignity: A Special Focus on Vulnerable Groups, F. MĂ©gret & F. Hoffman eds. (Agenda for Human Rights: a Swiss Initiative, Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, 2009).

Non-refereed articles

  • Book Review, Hilal Elver, The Headscarf Controversy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, forthcoming, 2013.
  • Book Review, Bipasha Baruah, Women and Property in India (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), Canadian Journal of Women and the Law: 2012. Vol. 24 Issue 2, p. 496.
    LINK: pp. 496-501 | DOI: 10.1353/jwl.2012.0018

Media and blogs

  • August 15, 2021, “” inĚýThe Conversation; translated in French (QuĂ©bec), French (France) and Spanish; reprinted in several international media sources, includingĚýThe National Post,ĚýOutlook India,ĚýHuffington Post,ĚýThe Wire.
  • May 19, 2021, ".
  • Audio icon Bill 21 and the recent European Court of Justice ruling on hijab in the workplace Ěý- UK Breakfast Show, The Voice of Islam Radio, July 30, 2021
  • June 13, 2017. "" I-CONnect, the blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law and of ContitutionMaking.org.
  • July 12, 2016, Vrinda Narain on The Current regarding the indictement of Canadian-Iranian scholar Homa Hoodfar, who has been detained in Evin prison since March 2016. Her segment runs from 2:00-9:15.
  • October 14, 2014, Interview [.mp3] on CJAD's The Exchange with Dave Kaufman on Malala Yousafzai receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • January 30, 2014, on Canadian Muslim hipsters defying stereotypes.
  • September 13, 2013, CTV interview (video 2:41) with Toronto news anchor Marcia Macmillan, in response to the Indian Court sentence in the infamous gang rape and murder case of last December.
  • Prof. Narain was quoted in The Week, July 2, 2013:
  • Interview on CBC The National, February 16, 2012 on the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision on Religious Freedom in S.L.Ěýv.ĚýCommission scolaire des ChĂŞnes, 2012 SCC 7, [2012] 1 S.C.R. 235.
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