Dr. Golam Rabbani is a researcher, university educator, amateur writer, and organizational research professional whose work connects academic inquiry with public, community, and institutional practice. He teaches at Toronto Metropolitan University and is a Research Fellow in South Asian Studies at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. With more than sixteen years of teaching, research, curriculum development, and academic leadership experience across Canada and abroad, he brings a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective to questions of culture, creativity, migration, equity, learning, and social change.
Dr. Rabbani’s research focuses on creative industries, Bangladeshi/South Asian music, literature and environmental humanities, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, migration, diaspora, EDI, community-engaged research, and the cultural politics of marginalized communities. His SSHRC-funded doctoral research at Queen’s University examined the commodification of Baul spirituality, music, and lyric literature in Bangladesh, with attention to agency, authenticity, cultural labour, spirituality, and the changing conditions of folk and creative industries. His current and recent projects extend this work into Canadian and North American contexts, exploring South Asian newcomer music, Bangladeshi diasporic cultural practices, refugee and immigrant creativity, devotional music in workplaces, community belonging, cultural resilience, Bangladeshi environmental humanities, and the role of creative practice in wellbeing and social inclusion.
As a university educator, Dr. Rabbani has designed and taught more than one hundred courses in creative industries, research methods, diversity, equity and inclusion, organizational behaviour, working across cultures, music and religion, film music, South Asian popular culture, cultural studies, postcolonial and decolonial studies, writing and rhetoric, sociology, literature, and English language teaching. He has taught at Toronto Metropolitan University, Algoma University, Queen’s University, Carleton University, St. Lawrence College, the University of Antwerp, Jahangirnagar University, East West University, Eastern University, Independent University Bangladesh, and American International University Bangladesh. His teaching emphasizes inclusive pedagogy, theory-practice integration, interdisciplinary learning, reflective writing, creative assessment, student-centred learning, and culturally responsive classroom practice.
Beyond academia, Dr. Rabbani works at the intersection of applied research, organizational learning, EDI, and AI. He has experience designing EDI toolkits, training resources, implementation strategies, research plans, interview and focus group protocols, stakeholder engagement materials, briefing-style summaries, reports, rubrics, learning modules, and knowledge-mobilization outputs. His organizational research experience includes policy-relevant research, literature and environmental scans, stakeholder consultation, qualitative analysis, community-based research, grant development, project coordination, and accessible communication for academic, community, public-sector, nonprofit, and creative-sector audiences. He also works in AI data quality and evaluation, where he applies his expertise in research methods, cultural analysis, rubric design, bias-aware assessment, and educational content review.
Dr. Rabbani is affiliated with the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE), the Modern Language Association (MLA), the American Academy of Religion (AAR), and the Canadian Society for Traditional Music (CSTM), and serves as Research Lead at the Association for the Study of Literature, Environment and Culture-Bangladesh (ASLEC-Bangladesh). He is also a journal reviewer, public-facing content creator on cultural issues, and a vocal musician trained in Baul music and Indian classical music.
Dr. Rabbani’s broader intellectual and professional commitments are grounded in the belief that research, teaching, and organizational practice should produce meaningful social impact. Whether in the classroom, community, workplace, archive, performance space, or digital environment, his work asks how culture can help people understand inequity, build belonging, preserve memory, imagine ethical futures, and create more inclusive institutions.
Feel free to navigate through this website and contact Dr. Rabbani for lectures, talks, interviews, and research collaborations.