Suzanne Conklin Akbari is a medievalist, recognised for her global and comparative approach to medieval literary history.
[1] She began teaching at the University of Toronto in 1995, where she served as a Professor in the Department of English, as well as the Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies from 2013 to 2019.
[3] Her second monograph, Idols in the East (2009), presents a prehistory of orientalism in which Western Christian medieval writing associated Islam with idolatry.
[5] In 2013, Akbari was an organizer for the grassroots group "Keep Back Campus Green," which sought to block the development of an artificial turf athletic field behind the University of Toronto's University College buildings, arguing that the Back Campus Fields ought to be protected as a heritage site.
[11] With Filiz Çakır Phillip, she co-curated the exhibition 'Hidden Stories: Books Along the Silk Roads', which ran at the Aga Khan Museum from October 2021 to February 2022.