Tony Kashani
Dr. Tony Kashani is a member of Adjunct Faculty and a Humanities Instructor at Taft College.
He an Iranian-American author, educator, philosopher of technology, and a cultural critic. Dr. Kashani is a subject matter expert and faculty for several universities in the United States, focusing his interdisciplinary scholarship and pedagogy on humanities in the digital age and social justice.
Kashani was born in Tehran to Azerbaijani parents, an ethnic minority in Iran. He grew up speaking Farsi and Turkish, and after migrating at the critical age of fifteen to his adopted home of California, English became his primary language of intellectualism.
Speaking three languages and being aware of three distinctly diverse cultures at once gave Kashani the impetus to seek a philosophy of cosmopolitanism, where one embraces all cultures and is at ease in most countries in the world. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Radio and Television and later his Master’s Degree in Cinema Studies from San Francisco State University. He has a Ph.D. in Humanities with emphasis on culture studies from California Institute of Integral Studies. The author of five books, his writing, teaching, and intellectual activism are anchored in critical theory and pedagogy. Dr. Kashani is an advocate of global diversity.
Dr. Kashani is completing his sixth book and gathering research for a manuscript on the paradox of being human in the digital age. On a personal side, he is a practicing Black Belt in Karate and as a student of Zen philosophy believes in balancing his life with mindfulness to result in a harmonious mind/body/spirit existence.