Stanford Iranian Studies Program podcast

#Podcasting Education #Iran #Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Learn when a refi saves money and how target-date funds work, including fees and when to pick a later fund year. What exactly is a target-date fund, and when should you move your date? How do you know if now is a good time to refinance a house? Hosts Sean Pyles and Elizabeth Ayoola discuss mortgage refinancing and target-date funds to help you understand how to quantify savings on a refi and how to set (and adjust) an age-appropriate retirement glide path. To kick off the episode, NerdWallet senior news writer Anna Helhoski joins with mortgages and student loans writer Kate Wood and mortgage reporter Holden Lewis to break down why refis are spiking even without fresh Federal Reserve cuts, who’s most likely to benefit right now, and how markets (not just the Fed) drive daily mortgage rate moves. They begin with a discussion of rate-and-term vs. cash-out refinancing, with tips and tricks on calculating your breakeven point, using the ~0.75 percentage-point rule-of-thumb for potential savings, and factoring in 2% to 6% closing costs and how long you’ll stay put. Then, investing Nerd June Sham joins Sean and Elizabeth to discuss target-date funds. They discuss how glide paths work (to vs. through retirement), when to push your target year if you’ll work longer, and how fees compare with index funds/ETFs, plus contribution frameworks (10% to 15% of income vs. the “80% replacement” rule) and why many hands-off investors value auto-rebalancing despite higher expense ratios. A listener case study (age 35, 2055 fund) highlights how to revisit your target date in the decade before retirement, how to read a fund’s glide path, and why staying invested and consistent often matters more than chasing perfect timing. Want us to review your budget? Fill out this form — completely anonymously if you want — and we might feature your budget in a future segment! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScK53yAufsc4v5UpghhVfxtk2MoyooHzlSIRBnRxUPl3hKBig/viewform?usp=header In this episode, the Nerds discuss: mortgage refinance, refinance calculator, mortgage rates today, breakeven point refinance, cash-out refinance, HELOC vs cash-out, refinance closing costs, when to refinance, refinance vs home equity loan, bond market and mortgage rates, Federal Reserve and mortgage rates, target-date fund, best target-date funds, target-date fund glide path, to vs through glide path, 401k target-date fund, change target-date fund year, 2055 target-date fund, target-date fund fees, expense ratio comparison, ETF vs mutual fund, index funds S&P 500, retirement contribution 10 to 15 percent, 80 percent income replacement rule, taxable brokerage vs 401k, annuity vs staying invested, debt consolidation with home equity, credit card APR vs mortgage rate, divorce refinance requirements, stay-or-sell breakeven analysis, and refinance eligibility 2025. To send the Nerds your money questions, call or text the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373 or email podcast@nerdwallet.com . Like what you hear? Please leave us a review and tell a friend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies fosters the interdisciplinary study of Iran as a civilization. Each academic year, the Program offers undergraduate courses related to Iran in such disciplines as language, literature, economics, and political science. It provides a wealth of events for scholars, students and the general public, which include conferences, symposia, forums, lectures and performances. Listen to one of our podcasts or check out our youtube channel to discover Iran!

174 episodes

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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174 episodes

#Podcasting Education #Iran #Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Stanford Iranian Studies Program

1
Book Talk: Ahmad Shamlou, Behind the Mirror 55:47

il y a 2 years55:47

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October 5, 2023 Speaker: Bahram Grami A book talk about the acclaimed Iranian poet, Ahmad Shamlou, with Dr. Bahram Grami. Event is in Persian and was organized on Oct. 5, 2023. “The book 'Ahmad Shamlou, Behind the Mirror' is not a literary criticism, it is a step toward better knowing Ahmad Shamlou based on reliable sources. It is not a documentary for promoting or defaming him. While Shamlou should be appreciated and praised for his great poetical works, his character and social life is studied because he has been a role model for young generations. This book contrasts with his statement, ‘I live in a glass house and have nothing to hide.’” Bahram Grami was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. He studied at Tehran University, American University of Beirut and University of Manitoba, Canada, where he received his PhD in plant science and genetics. He served as assistant professor in Iran until he left for the United States in 1985 and became a researcher at the University of California, Davis. His recent work includes the 2022 edition of Flowers and Plants in a Thousand Years of Persian Poetry. He has taught in Hong Kong, Bahrain and China, and has been a consulting editor for flora with the Encyclopedia Iranica.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Mohammad Reza Shajarian Records Singing with Hagia Sophia Acoustics 11:56

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In 2014, Maestro Mohammad Reza Shajarian visited Stanford University. In collaboration with Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), he recorded a few test sessions using virtual acoustics of the Hagia Sophia. Recording and production of audio and video were made possible by the CCRMA team and the Icons of Sound Project. To watch the video recording of these test sessions, please visit our YouTube channel.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Parliamentary Politics and Iran-US Relations During the Cold War 36:54

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June 1, 2023 Speaker: Tomoyo Chisaka The second Zahedi Family Fellow lecture by the Spring 2023 Zahedi Fellow, Dr. Tomoyo Chisaka. Influential literature on Iran-US relations has assessed economic and security issues as having profound impacts on the rise and fall of Mohammad Reza Shah. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways that Iran's domestic institutions, particularly parliamentary politics, influenced the nature of bilateral relations. Findings from the Ardeshir Zahedi papers housed in Hoover Library and Archives and the US National Security Archives indicate that even though the Shah and the US were close allies, parliamentary elections provided a space for the US to contact “moderate” opposition who tried to challenge the Shah’s dictatorship by participating in electoral politics. This communication was facilitated by US concerns about fighting communism within the context of the Cold War, in part because Iran’s opposition knew that only US advocacy would encourage the Shah to co-opt them in parliament in an otherwise illiberal authoritarian environment. A closer look at parliamentary elections in Iran during the Shah’s regime offers important insights into the ways that domestic politics interacted with Iran-US relations, with implications for Iran’s political development. Dr. Tomoyo Chisaka joined the Iranian Studies Program as the second Zahedi Family Fellow in spring of 2023. Dr. Chisaka is a JSPS postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo, Japan. She was a visiting scholar at the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University during the 2022-2023 academic year. Her dissertation examined parliamentary election management in post-revolutionary Iran. Focusing on the legal functions of the Ministry of Interior and the Guardian Council, the dissertation considered when and how Iran’s Supreme Leader delegates autonomy to the executive headed by the President as related to the management of parliamentary elections.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Women, Art, Freedom: Women Artists & Street Politics in Iran by Pamela Karimi 55:46

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May 11, 2023 Speakers: Pamela Karimi Discussion with Dr. Pamela Karimi about the work of several prominent contemporary women artists and their courageous acts of political activism in the streets of Iran. Following the tragic murder of Mahsa Amini, Iranian women took to the streets in large numbers to protest. Their bodies were the focus of these demonstrations, with women dancing and spinning their headscarves or anonymous activists installing protest banners or using sanitary pads to cover surveillance cameras in order to prevent state authorities from imposing conservative dress codes on women. The courageous presence of women in public spaces has been a crucial aspect of this revolution, with many instances of women's political activism on the streets taking on characteristics of art production. By entering the realm of visuality and sense-experience, traditionally assigned to art and aesthetics, activism has taken on performative dimensions. However, the "Woman, Life, Freedom" uprising is not the only manifestation of such involvement. For over three decades, Iranian women artists (and, by extension, activists as artists) have engaged in public art activism, creating moments of rupture in everyday life without necessarily declaring an overt political stance. These artists have used guerilla-style tactics such as painting graffiti, playful drifting, and occupying empty urban spaces to assert their right to the city and challenge strict urban regulations. Such innovative practices in busy urban areas are more challenging for women artists than their male counterparts. This presentation highlights the work of several prominent contemporary women artists who have questioned the limitations of public life for women, demanded freedom of expression, and reclaimed the streets through their creative and courageous interventions. Pamela Karimi received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and is currently a professor at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Karimi is the author of Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran (Routledge, 2013) and Alternative Iran: Contemporary Art & Critical Spatial Practice (Stanford, 2022). She is the co-editor of The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in the Middle East: From Napoleon to ISIS, a collection of important essays published at the height of ISIS attacks on cultural heritage. Karimi has held fellowships from many organizations, including the College Art Association, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and Iran Heritage Foundation at SOAS. More recently Karimi was the co-recipient of a major grant from the Connecting Art Histories Initiative at the Getty Foundation. Co-founder of Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative, Karimi currently serves on the boards of Thresholds Journal (MIT Press) and the Association of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Never Invisible: An Iranian Woman’s Life Across the Twentieth Century 1:25:48

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May 2, 2023 Speakers: Ladan Lari, Leila Pourhashemi, Abbas Milani, Kioumars Ghereghlou A discussion about "Never Invisible: An Iranian Woman’s Life Across the Twentieth Century" (Mage Publishers, 2023). Houri Mostofi Moghadam was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1919, descended on her mother’s side from Iranian royalty and on her father’s from a “God-fearing” family of scholars and government administrators. When she was twenty-two, Houri married Mohsen Moghadam, a young man from a merchant family who went on to become a successful businessman, often traveling abroad, while Houri dedicated herself to teaching, charitable public works, and running international women’s associations in Tehran. Together, they also raised three children, in whom Houri was keen to instill the same spirit of industry and self-discipline she had learned from her own parents. Houri was among the first women to go to university in Iran, working as a teacher for nearly forty years and diligently continuing with her own education in later life, including traveling to the U.S. as a Fulbright Scholar, and, after being forced into exile following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, studying for a PhD at the Sorbonne in Paris. From a privileged social class, with a glamorous, jet-setting lifestyle, Houri was a pioneer, nonetheless, and a feminist for her own time. Through her hard work and frequent acts of bravery—from standing up to sinister intruders to dogged persistence in the face of intransigent officialdom—she made sure that, as a woman, she was never overlooked, never invisible, even when hidden under a dark chador at the Revolutionary Court. It was women like Houri who were the precursors of the young women fighting for equal rights and justice in Iran today. The resulting memoir tells the fascinating story of her life, with all its ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies, set against the backdrop of an impending revolution that would topple the world she and her family had always known and turn it upside down. In this video, Houri’s daughter, Ladan Lari, and granddaughter, Leila Pourhashemi, discuss Houri’s life and work, and the extraordinary commitment Houri’s daughter, Mariam Safinia, undertook to make the publication of this memoir possible. Dr. Kioumars Ghereghlou and Dr. Abbas Milani discuss the importance of the Houri Moghadam archival collection at Stanford, her life in historical perspective, and the process of creating and publishing the memoir. Conversation is in English and is moderated by Stanford Stein Visiting Writer Laleh Khadivi.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Challenges and Prospects for Dynamic Entrepreneurship in Iran’s Transition to Democracy 1:57:28

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April 21, 2023 A conversation with prominent Iranian-American business leaders Faraj Aalaei, Siavash Alamouti, Fay Arjomandi, Afsaneh Beschloss, Hamid Moghadam, and Shane Tedjarati about the role of dynamic entrepreneurship, the role of women in the future economy, and the impact of the Iranian diaspora on the transition to a future democratic Iran. The conference was moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani and held April 21, 2023 at Stanford University. Part of the Iranian Studies series "Prospects and Challenges for Transition to Democracy in Iran": https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/initiatives/series-prospects-and-challenges-transition-democracy-iran SPEAKERS: Faraj Aalaei, an Iranian American immigrant and a 40-year veteran of the communications industry, is currently the Founding Managing Partner at Candou Ventures. As an entrepreneur Mr. Aalaei has raised several hundred million dollars for his semiconductor companies from private and public investors, executed several M&A deals and as CEO has taken two previous start-ups, Centillium and Aquantia, through IPO. Siavash Alamouti is an Iranian American scientist and entrepreneur. He has held senior executive positions in many Fortune 100 and startup companies, and is currently Executive Chairman of the Board at mimik Technology in Oakland, California. Mr. Alamouti was awarded the prestigious Marconi Prize (also known as the Nobel Prize in Communications) in 2022. He is most known as the inventor of the Alamouti Code used in billions of wireless devices. Fay Arjomandi is the founder and CEO of mimik, the pioneering hybrid edge cloud (HEC) company and has held executive positions in telecom, digital health, software, and augmented reality enterprises. Ms. Arjomandi is also a serial entrepreneur, investor, advisor, author, and advocate for women in tech and equality. She was recognized as one of the most influential women in Silicon Valley by San Francisco Business Week in 2014, was named the Edge Woman of the year in 2020 by the Linux Foundation, and received the Canadian Top 20 Tech Titans Award in 2022. Afsaneh Beschloss is an economist and leader in the private, public, and multilateral sectors and has focused her career on harnessing the power of sustainable finance to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. A pioneer in climate policy and investments, Ms. Beschloss is the founder and CEO of RockCreek, one of the largest diverse-owned investment firms. The executive roles she has held, including the Treasurer and Chief Investment Officer of the World Bank, has enabled her to work closely with central banks and advise governments and regulatory agencies on global public policy, financial policy, as well as renewable energy. Hamid Moghadam is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Prologis, the global leader in logistics real estate and a member of the S&P 100. He is a Trustee Emeritus of Stanford University and currently serves on the boards of Stanford Management Company, Stanford Health Care and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, he is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. In its latest ranking, Harvard Business Review voted him as the #17 Best Performing CEO in the world. Shane Tedjarati is the founder, chairman and CEO of the Tribridge Group, a global investment group applying leading technologies to global megatrends. Mr. Tedjarati was a former president and CEO of the Global High Growth Regions in Honeywell International Inc. He is also a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and the co-founder of its Middle East Leadership Initiative and China Fellowship Program. He is a member of the advisory board of Antai College of Economics and Management and the industry co-chair of China Leaders for Global Operations of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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From Esther to Persepolis: Harbingers of Woman, Life, Freedom 58:58

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March 25, 2023 Speakers: Mahnaz Afkhami, Homa Sarshar, and Marjane Satrapi A discussion with Ms. Mahnaz Afkhami, Ms. Homa Sarshar, and Ms. Marjane Satrapi, moderated by Dr. Mandana Zandian as a part of the conference "Dialogues on Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy" co-hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies, Gozar.org, and KAI on March 25-26, 2023 at Stanford University. Mahnaz Afkhami is a women's rights activist and author. Homa Sarshar is a journalist, writer, and human rights activist. Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian artist and director. With more than 30+ panel talks, 24 roundtables, 50+ speakers, and more than 100+ experts and civil society activists, the conference explored challenges and pathways of transitioning from the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to a secular democracy. Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the conference convened a diverse set of thought-leaders, experts, and civil society activists to support dialogue and discourse around the establishment of a new democratic system of governance in Iran. Learn more about the conference: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/events/conference-dialogues-irans-transition-secular-democracy…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Pacted Transitions and Applications to Iran 29:28

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March 17, 2023 Speakers: Hicham Alaoui A discussion with Dr. Hicham Alaoui (Hicham Alaoui Foundation) and Dr. Abbas Milani (Stanford Iranian Studies) in March of 2023. Part of the conference "Dialogues on Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy" co-hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies, Gozar.org, and KAI on March 25-26, 2023 at Stanford University. Dr. Alaoui is the Director of the Hicham Alaoui Foundation Dr. Abbas Milani is the faculty director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University. With more than 30+ panel talks, 24 roundtables, 50+ speakers, and more than 100+ experts and civil society activists, the conference explored challenges and pathways of transitioning from the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to a secular democracy. Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the conference convened a diverse set of thought-leaders, experts, and civil society activists to support dialogue and discourse around the establishment of a new democratic system of governance in Iran. Learn more about the conference: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/events/conference-dialogues-irans-transition-secular-democracy…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Challenges of Iran's Transition in Comparative Perspective 42:01

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March 16, 2023 Speakers: Larry Diamond, Michael McFaul, Abbas Milani A discussion with Professor Larry Diamond (Political Science, Stanford) and Professor Michael McFaul (FSI, Stanford), moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani (Stanford Iranian Studies) in March of 2023. Part of the conference "Dialogues on Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy" co-hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies, Gozar.org, and KAI on March 25-26, 2023 at Stanford University. Professor Larry Diamond is the Mosbacher Senior Fellow of Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford. Professor Michael McFaul is the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Dr. Abbas Milani is the faculty director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University. With more than 30+ panel talks, 24 roundtables, 50+ speakers, and more than 100+ experts and civil society activists, the conference explored challenges and pathways of transitioning from the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to a secular democracy. Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the conference convened a diverse set of thought-leaders, experts, and civil society activists to support dialogue and discourse around the establishment of a new democratic system of governance in Iran. Learn more about the conference: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/events/conference-dialogues-irans-transition-secular-democracy…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Human Rights Data Collection for Judicial Processes in Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy 23:26

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March 15, 2023 Speakers: Allen Weiner, Bailey Ulbricht A discussion with Professor Allen Weiner (Stanford Law School) and Bailey Ulbricht (Stanford Humanitarian Program), moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani (Stanford Iranian Studies) in March of 2023. Part of the conference "Dialogues on Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy" co-hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies, Gozar.org, and KAI on March 25-26, 2023 at Stanford University. Professor Allen Weiner is the director of the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law and the director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. Bailey Ulbricht is Executive Director of the Stanford Humanitarian Program at the Stanford Law School. Dr. Abbas Milani is the faculty director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University. With more than 30+ panel talks, 24 roundtables, 50+ speakers, and more than 100+ experts and civil society activists, the conference explored challenges and pathways of transitioning from the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to a secular democracy. Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the conference convened a diverse set of thought-leaders, experts, and civil society activists to support dialogue and discourse around the establishment of a new democratic system of governance in Iran.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Panel Discussion of Norooz (Persian New Year) 43:39

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March 14, 2023 Speakers: Mojdeh Shamsaie, Shervin Emami, Abbas Milani, Donya Nasser Panel discussion of Norooz/Persian New Year, hosted by the Stanford Iranian Studies Program and the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program at Stanford in March 2023. Ms. Mojdeh Shamsaie, Professor Shervin Emami, and Professor Abbas Milani discuss the history and importance of Norooz, how it is celebrated in Iran and around the world, and the challenges it faces in Iran today. Conversation moderated by Stanford MS Health Policy student Donya Nasser.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Amplifying Iranian Women with Voice AI with Iran Davar Ardalan 53:35

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March 9, 2023 Speaker: Iran Davar Ardalan Iran Davar Ardalan discusses the innovative and new Voice AI experience “Freedom Speaks.” This project honors Iranian women using powerful art such as poems, music and more from the past & present—all accessible through Alexa's voice command “Alexa, open Freedom Speaks." Ms. Ardalan also explains how others can be part of an exciting conversation about pushing forward language capabilities by making datasets available in Persian so that even more voices can have true power. Iran Davar Ardalan is the executive producer of "Freedom Speaks," a voice AI on Amazon Alexa that shares inspiring stories by Iranian women. Ardalan is a senior advisor to Women in Voice, a global non-profit creating women leaders in conversational AI. Ardalan is also National Geographic's executive producer of audio, where she oversees the award-winning podcast series, "Overheard,” the narrative limited series "Into the Depths" as well as new forays into spatial audio via Nat Geo's Soundbank. In September 2022, Ardalan presented “Sounds Like National Geographic” at the Voice2022 summit in Arlington, VA, talking about the future of voice AI as a keeper of wisdom and knowledge of nature and history and culture. Prior to this, Ardalan was deputy director of the Presidential Innovation Fellowship Program in Washington D.C. and before that a veteran journalist at NPR News for two decades. In May 2014, Davar was the recipient of an Ellis Island Medal of Honor, for individual achievement and for promoting cultural unity. In Fall 2021, through her work at IVOW, (Intelligent Voices of Wisdom) Ardalan launched a conversational AI scholar on Google Assistant to preserve the wisdom and work of her late mother, Islamic scholar, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar into 21st century voice technology.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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What the Failure of Local Democracy in Iran tells about Islamist Authoritarianism by Kian Tajbakhsh 1:38:35

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March 2, 2023 Speakers: Kian Tajbakhsh Author Kian Tajbakhsh discussed his most recent book, "Creating Local Democracy in Iran: State Building and the Politics of Decentralization." With a combination of historical, political, and financial field research, it explores the multifaceted dimensions of local power and how various ideologically opposed actors shaped local government as an integral component of authoritarian state building. The Q&A session includes Dr. Abbas Milani (director of Iranian Studies Program at Stanford) and Dr. Michael A. McFaul, (director of Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies). *The audio quality improves in the first 20 seconds of the talk. Kian Tajbakhsh (Ph.D. Columbia 1993) is a Senior Advisor at Columbia Global. In this role, Dr. Tajbakhsh works on university-wide initiatives focused on global migration and is the Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration. He is also a Fellow with Columbia’s Committee on Global Thought where since 2017 he has taught the core course in the Global Thought MA program “Globalization and the Problems of World Order.” From 2016-2018 he was Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia. His book Creating Local Democracy In Iran: State-Building and the Politics of Decentralization was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. Before joining Columbia, Tajbakhsh worked for fifteen years as an international expert in urban policy and local government reform; democracy and human rights promotion. Reflecting his commitment to democracy and human rights, Tajbakhsh was the Open Society (Soros) Foundation’s representative in Iran in the 2000s, where he directed several initiatives aimed at strengthening civil society. Tajbakhsh was among the pro-democracy activists arrested and detained by the Iranian government during the Green Movement protests in 2009 and released as part of the 2016 Iran/P5+1 Nuclear Deal.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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A Discussion with Mohsen Yalfani 1:02:14

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February 17, 2023 Speakers: Mohsen Yalfani, Shabnam Tolouei A discussion with Mohsen Yalfani about his life, work, and the recent reading of his play “Diaspora,” directed by Shabnam Tolouei at Stanford University. Ms. Tolouei joined the conversation as well. Discussion is in Persian. Mohsen Yalfani was born in 1943 in Hamadan, Iran. He wrote his first plays in his last year in high school and submitted one to the Center for Dramatic Arts in Tehran and won a prize for it. At the age of 18 he moved to Tehran, and while studying at the Teachers' Training College, another of his plays won the same prize. This play was staged in the major theater in Tehran in 1966. Yalfani wrote several one act plays that were published in literary magazines and produced for Iranian television. In 1970 he wrote “The Teachers” which was staged in Tehran. The play was stopped by the Shah’s SAVAK and Yalfani along with the director, Saeid Soltanpoor, were arrested and spent three months in prison. Henceforth, all of Yalfani’s plays were prohibited from being staged or published. In 1973, while collaborating with the Iran Theatre Association, he was arrested, along with his coworkers and friends, and imprisoned for four years. In prison, he translated and adapted the book Voice and the Actor by Cicely Berry and wrote his one-act play “On the Beach.” When released in 1978, Yalfani collaborated with the Iranian Writers' Association (of which he was elected as a member of the secretariat). After the Islamic Regime’s crackdown on democratic associations, Yalfani left Iran, in disguise, and sought political asylum in France. Shabnam Tolouei is an award-winning actress, playwright, and director. Born in Tehran, she was forced into exile in 2004 and became a naturalized French citizen in 2019. She has studied filmmaking in Tehran, Bagh-Ferdos Film School and Theatre Studies at Université Paris X, Nanterre, France. She has been writing short stories for cultural magazines since 1990, acting and writing plays since 1993, and teaching acting for camera since 2001. She continues her career outside Iran as an actress, filmmaker, and playwright. Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Reza Shah's Exile in Mauritius with Houchang Chehabi 1:01:25

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February 8, 2023 Speaker: Houchang Chehabi Dr. Houchang Chehabi discusses his new research work on Reza Shah and his family's exile in Mauritius. In 1941 Reza Shah and most of his family were exiled by the British to the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. They remained there for six months. This talk discusses the circumstances of the royal family's long trip from Bandar Abbas via India to Mauritius, their reception by the colonial authorities of the island, and their ambiguous relations with local Mauritian society against the background of the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean during the Second World War. Dr. Houchang Chehabi is a Visiting Professor at UCLA and Emeritus Professor of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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"How Iranians and Iran Changed the life of an American Woman" by Mona Khademi 58:53

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February 2, 2023 Speaker: Mona Khademi Mona Khademi will examine the extraordinary life of Laura Barney and her deep and enduring connections with Iranians and Iran, and their impact on her life. Laura Barney learned Persian, traveled to Iran in 1906, visited several cities there, and met many Iranian dignitaries and government officials. She also met Iranian officials and scholars outside of Iran. Laura Barney was born in Ohio in 1879 but lived much of her life in Paris. She was introduced to the Baha’i Faith in 1900 in Paris and accepted its teachings. This sudden and profound change in the life of this young woman would have lasting consequences throughout the rest of her long life. She traveled to Akka, Palestine, the same year and met the son of the founder of the Baha’i faith, Abdu’l-Baha, who was then confined to prison. She compiled a book based on his responses to questions she posed to him titled Some Answered Questions, which was published in 1908 in three languages and became a major Baha’i book. Laura Barney’s humanitarian activities reflected her spiritual beliefs in the equality of men and women, world peace, and the oneness of humankind. She promoted these principles through her selfless work with the League of Nations and the International Council of Women, and later with the United Nations. She used her social privileges and blessings to become a feminist, global thinker, and peace builder. For her services to France, she was named Chevalier and later Officer of the Legion of Honors. Mona Khademi received her BA from Pahlavi University (today’s Shiraz University), Master's Degree in Arts Management from the American University, and has worked towards a PHD degree at Imperial College in London. As an independent researcher, Khademi has presented papers at conferences in Switzerland, Italy, Spain, England, and several cities in the US. Her articles have been published in several journals and magazines, quarterlies, and as chapters of books. Khademi started her research about the life of Laura Clifford Dreyfus-Barney in 2000 and has presented papers and published articles on this subject. Based on this research, she wrote the full biography titled "The Life of Laura Barney" which was published in June 2022. Mona Khademi is the Director of International Arts Management Consulting in Washington, D.C. Through her consulting firm, she promotes global understanding through exchange of arts and cultural programs. Her areas of interest include development and management of international cultural and arts programs. She is a member of the American Alliance of Museums.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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A Narrative of Endurance with Homa Sarshar 44:53

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December 1, 2022 Speaker: Homa Sarshar Homa Sarshar discusses her new book "A Narrative of Endurance." She also touched on the Iranian women’s movement and demonstrations organized by the Iranian diaspora in support of protests in Iran over the past four decades. This talk is in Persian. About the book: “One can find and obtain knowledge, albeit incomplete, of the footprints of nations and people in cemeteries discovered hundreds of years after their presence in the region. Years later, when a curious passer-by reaches the city of angels and visits each of the cemeteries in the city, they will know that at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, immigrants lived in the city, among them numerous artists, intellectuals, academics, geniuses, political activists, and tireless fighters, who had departed their country or had escaped the prison of the Islamic Republic when the candle of the existence of some of them was soon extinguished. The tombstones of their eternal resting place, each in the cemeteries of Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris, London, and other cities, narrate a great historical migration, and so great that counting them all is no easy feat. The name of each of these greats, buried in foreign soil, reminds that passer-by of what happened to this immigrant tribe and the narrative of their legacy.” Homa Sarshar is a published author, award-winning journalist, writer, and media personality. She is the author of several books and the editor of eleven other volumes, including five volumes of the Iranian Women's Studies Foundation Journal and four volumes of "The History of Contemporary Iranian Jews." Her book "Sha’ban Jafari" was the number one best seller Persian book in Iran and abroad in the year 2003. From 1964 to 1978, she worked as a correspondent, reporter, and columnist for Zan-e Ruz weekly magazine and Kayhan daily newspaper in Iran. During this period, she also worked as a television producer, director, and talk show host for National Iranian Radio & Television. In 1978, Sarshar moved to Los Angeles where she resumed her career as a freelance journalist, radio and television producer, and on-air host. An established women’s rights activist, she served a five-year term on the board of the Iranian Women Studies Foundation, has worked with Human Rights Watch, her two-volume memoir ("Dar Koocheh Paskoocheh Ha-ye Ghorbat") was the first publication of a Jewish Iranian memoir, one of the first Persian memoirs after the revolution published outside Iran, as well as one of the very few examples of memoir-writing by an Iranian woman at the time of its publication. In 1995, she founded the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History (CIJOH) in Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization that gathered over 1,600 historically significant photographs and documents, and recorded over 120 oral interviews with elders and leaders of the community. In 2006, she founded Honar Foundation to provide social and financial support to all Iranian American artists in need to ensure that these unique talents are served in the best way possible and their lives are improved. Throughout her 50-year career with Iranian and Iranian-American print, radio, and television, Sarshar has done more than 3000 interviews and has produced and anchored as many radio and television programs. She has also written, directed, and produced a collection of twenty video documentaries on exiled Iranian writers, poets, and artists, some of which have been acquired by the Library of Congress for the library’s permanent audiovisual archive.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Shirin Ebadi: Until We Are Free (film screening discussion) 1:25:19

il y a 3 years1:25:19

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November 30, 2022 Speaker: Shirin Ebadi The Iranian Studies Program screened a new documentary “Shirin Ebadi: Until We Are Free” about the Nobel Peace laureate’s mission to bring justice to the people of Iran. Dr. Ebadi held a post screening discussion live-translated to English and moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani. The event was introduced by Dr. Abbas Milani. Hamid Moghadam welcomed guests and spoke about Shirin Ebadi's life and work. Dean Debra Satz, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, and Professor of Philosophy, spoke about the universality of human rights and Iranian women's fight for equality and justice. Professor Michael McFaul, the director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute, closed the event. Shirin Ebadi is an author and lawyer, and was the first female judge in Iran. She has lived in exile in London since 2009. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts to promote democracy and human rights, especially those of women and children in Iran. Ebadi was a judge in Iran until 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution, when she was no longer allowed to work as a judge. She co-founded the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child in 1994 and co-founded the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) in 2002 with other lawyers to assist those working towards promoting democracy. After her Nobel Prize in 2003, she co-founded the Nobel Women's Initiative in 2006, and used some of her prize money to support DHRC. In 2008, the Iranian government closed down DHRC by raiding her office, which by then had 30 lawyers working on cases. While she was traveling abroad, her professional archives and personal belongings were confiscated, and her husband and her sister arrested and imprisoned on spurious charges. She published her memoir, "Until We Are Free," in 2016 detailing her fight for human rights in Iran. The film “Shirin Ebadi: Until We Are Free,” written and directed by the award-winning filmmaker Dawn Gifford Engle, tells Ebadi’s story of courage and defiance in the face of a government out to destroy her, her family, and her mission: to bring justice to the people and the country she loves. The Iranian government would end up taking everything from Shirin Ebadi–her marriage, her home, even her Nobel Prize medallion–but the one thing it could never steal was her spirit to fight for justice and a better future for the women of Iran. Read more about the film: https://www.peacejam.org/film/shirin-ebadi-until-we-are-free The event was co-sponsored by the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Film screening: There Is No Evil 1:05:59

il y a 3 years1:05:59

1:05:59

October 29, 2021 Speaker: Mohammad Rasoulof The film screening of There Is No Evil was followed by a discussion with the film's director, Mohammad Rasoulof. The talk is in Persian with live English translation. About the film: Filmed in secret and banned in its home country, Mohammad Rasoulof’s Golden Bear-winning film is an anthology of four short stories, each focused on a person affected by the capital punishment system in a country that commits more executions per capita than anywhere else on Earth. About the director: Mohammad Rasoulof was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1972. He is an independent director, writer, and producer. He studied sociology. Rasoulof started his filmmaking with documentaries and short films. For his first film Gagooman (The Twilight, 2002) Rasoulof won the prize for the best film at the Fajr Film Festival in Iran. After his second film Jazireh Ahani (Iron Island, 2005) he began to have problems with the censorship system in Iran and his possibilities for the further production and screening of films were strongly limited or prohibited. To this date Mohammad Rasoulof has produced five feature films which none of have been shown in Iran due to the censorship, while his films are enjoyed by a broad audience in cinemas and festivals outside of Iran. Until 2010 Rasoulof mostly used metaphoric forms of storytelling as his means of expression in his films. Since then, he has shifted to using more direct forms of expression. In March 2010 Rasoulof was arrested on set at a filming location together with Jafar Panahi while they were directing a film together. In the following trial, he was sentenced to six years in jail. This sentence was later reduced to one year. He was then released on bail and is still waiting for the sentence to be executed. Mohammad Rasoulof has won many prizes for his films. In 2011, he won the prize for best director in Un Certain Regard for his film Bé Omid é Didar (Goodbye, 2011) at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2013 he won the FIPRESCI Prize in Cannes for the film Dast-Neveshteha-Nemisoozand (Manuscripts Don't Burn, 2013) from the International Federation of Film Critics in Un Certain Regard. In 2017 he won the best film Prize in Cannes for the film Lerd (A Man of Integrity, 2017) in Un Certain Regard. He won the prize Golden Bear for the film Sheytan Vojood Nadarad (There Is No Evil, 2020) at the Berlin Film Festival 2020.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion: It Snows In This House (Book Talk) 54:44

il y a 3 years54:44

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October 28, 2022 Speaker: Hamed Esmaeilion Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion discusses his award-winning novels written in Persian, as well as his moving memoir about the loss of his wife and daughter in the downing of flight PS752 by the Islamic Republic of Iran on January 8, 2020. Introduction by Dr. Abbas Milani. Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion was born in Kermanshah, Iran and grew up during the Iran-Iraq war that ravaged the western part of Iran, including his hometown. Hamed earned his doctorate in dentistry in 2001. He married Parissa, a university classmate, and they opened a small dental practice in Tehran. In 2010, they moved to Canada when their daughter Reera was six months old and opened an independent practice just north of Toronto. While in Iran, Hamed published four novels that earned him several awards from the top Iranian literary circles. His first novel, Thyme is Not Pretty was published in 2009 and won the Hooshang Golshiri award for best short story collection. His third book titled Dr. Datis was published in 2012 and was awarded the Hooshang Golshiri award for best novel. Gamasyab Has No Fish was published in 2014 and was critically acclaimed and subsequently banned by the Islamic Republic authorities. The novel was later translated and published in Spanish by a Mexican publisher. After being black-listed by the Islamic Culture and Guidance Ministry, Hamed published his next novel The Blue Toukan in the United Kingdom. On January 8, 2020, Hamed lost his wife and nine-year old daughter who were aboard the Ukrainian flight PS752 that was shot down by IRGC missiles over the skies of Tehran. In the aftermath of the tragedy, he published his memoir It Snows in This House. Before the downing of flight PS752, Hamed was working on two novels, The Fractured Diaries of the Chancellor and The Summer with Five Bullets. He completed and published the last three books under the label Pareera Publishing that he founded in honor of his wife and daughter. Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion and Babak Payami: An Open Wound in the Sky 1:14:37

il y a 3 years1:14:37

1:14:37

October 13, 2022 Speakers: Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion and Babak Payami The Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies held a special screening of award-winning director Babak Payami’s new documentary "752 Is Not a Number" about the unprecedented downing of a passenger flight leaving Tehran airport by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. The film follows Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion’s struggles with grief and his fight for justice after losing his wife and daughter on flight PS752. Dr. Esmaeilion read excerpts from his memoir about the tragedy, "It Snows In This House." Mr. Payami and Dr. Esmaeilion discussed the film and answered questions after the screening. Introduction by Dr. Abbas Milani. Babak Payami was born in Tehran in 1966 and grew up in Iran and Afghanistan before leaving for Europe and subsequently Canada. He enrolled in the Cinema Studies program at the University of Toronto and eventually returned to Iran in 1998 where he wrote, produced, and directed his debut feature film "One More Day." He later wrote, directed, and co-produced with Marco Mueller, his second feature film "Secret Ballot," which went on to compete in the official program of the Venice International Film Festival in 2001 and earned him several accolades in Venice, including the Best Director award. In 2002 he began production on "Silence Between Two Thoughts" which he wrote, directed, and produced in remote areas of eastern Iran close to the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. All of the original material for the film was confiscated by the Iranian government and Babak was forced into exile in 2003. Babak has produced and directed numerous projects and has taught at the Ludwigsburg Film Academy in Germany and conducted workshops in Italy and North America. He was the creative director of the Media Studio at Fabrica. The Imagisti Creative Studio is the convergence of Payami’s work as an independent artist. Based in Toronto, Imagisti is a hub for young creative talent offering a unique array of acting and directing training classes, film and music production workshops, and artist coaching and branding programs. Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion was born in Kermanshah, Iran and grew up during the Iran-Iraq war that ravaged the western part of Iran, including his hometown. Hamed earned his doctorate in dentistry in 2001. He married Parissa, a university classmate, and they opened a small dental practice in Tehran. In 2010, they moved to Canada when their daughter Reera was six months old and opened an independent practice just north of Toronto. While in Iran, Hamed published four novels that earned him several awards from the top Iranian literary circles. His first novel, "Thyme is Not Pretty" was published in 2009 and won the Hooshang Golshiri award for best short story collection. His third book titled "Dr. Datis" was published in 2012 and was awarded the Hooshang Golshiri award for best novel. "Gamasyab Has No Fish" was published in 2014 and was critically acclaimed and subsequently banned by the Islamic Republic authorities. The novel was later translated and published in Spanish by a Mexican publisher. After being black-listed by the Islamic Culture and Guidance Ministry, Hamed published his next novel "The Blue Toukan" in the United Kingdom. On January 8, 2020, Hamed lost his wife and nine-year old daughter who were aboard the Ukrainian flight PS752 that was shot down by IRGC missiles over the skies of Tehran. In the aftermath of the tragedy, he published his memoir "It Snows in This House." Before the downing of flight PS752, Hamed was working on two novels, "The Fractured Diaries of the Chancellor" and "The Summer with Five Bullets." He completed and published the last three books under the label Pareera Publishing that he founded in honor of his wife and daughter.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Book Talk: The Battles of a Judge with Dr. Hamid Najafi 47:29

il y a 3 years47:29

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September 29, 2022 Speaker: Dr. Hamid Najafi Dr. Hamid Najafi discusses his new book "The Battles of a Judge." The book was written by Dr. Najafi and his late father, Dr. Hossein Najafi. From 1946 to 1979, Hossein Najafi served at the Justice Ministry of Iran. He started in an entry level judicial position after law school and rose to lead the Justice Department as a minister during the most tumultuous months of the Iranian Revolution. The book is his firsthand recollection of the legal cases and judgments he worked on during 33 years of service to his country. The book includes some of the most critical cases brought to the Justice Department during the Shah’s time and culminated in Dr. Najafi’s imprisonment by the Islamic revolutionaries and his eventual release under unprecedented circumstances. The writings depict a real, unbiased portrayal of the Justice Department, those in positions of power who tried to sway his judgements to their benefit, and illustrate how he never flinched in the pursuit of what he believed to be the uncompromised delivery of justice. Dr. Najafi’s never-before-told description of the events include numerous meetings with the Shah–many of which were private–during the most fateful and consequential months of Iran’s contemporary history. This book is essential reading for those interested in the recent history of Iran and, most importantly, to those working today, or planning to work in the future, in justice departments in Iran or elsewhere. Dr. Hamid Najafi, received his doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1983 and has worked as a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley for 40 years, primarily in wireless communications. He currently runs two startups while pursuing his beloved hobby of singing. He collected the writings of his late father, Dr. Hossein Najafi, and co-wrote portions of this book.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Nobody's Periphery: Pahlavi Iran and the Arab-Israeli Conflict 55:45

il y a 3 years55:45

55:45

May 31, 2022 Speaker: Arash Azizi "Pahlavi Iran, alongside Turkey, was a rare case of a Muslim-majority state to have consistent relations with Israel. Much of existing literature often discusses this as an aspect of Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s Policy of Periphery. But the Shah’s relations with Israel were in line with his foreign policy conception of “National Independent Policy” and part of a careful balancing act that aimed to stake out a unique place for Iran in the global Cold War. Following the 1967 war, the Shah publicly criticized Israel and demanded its withdrawal from the occupied territories while Iran also maintained clandestine ties to the PLO and restored its ties to the leading Arab nation of Egypt. The Shah’s vision of Iran as a Muslim country and his opposition to remnants of European colonialism also motivated Iran’s policy in this era. Basing itself on a study of the Ardeshir Zahedi papers at the Hoover Library & Archives—which include accounts of Iran’s diplomatic meetings with countries such as Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia—this study attempts to flesh out the formation and execution of Iranian policy on the Arab- and Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the 1967-79 period." Arash Azizi, a PhD candidate in History and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University (NYU), will be the first Zahedi Family Fellow at Stanford University, joining in spring 2022. His dissertation charts the history of Communist internationalism in the Middle East as part of the Global Cold War. Focusing on the ties between the Communist parties of Iran and Iraq, the dissertation looks at their transnational collaboration, their unique stance on Israel/Palestine and their rivalry with the New Left and Islamists. It looks to show how the Cold War was waged in the Middle East, not only by distant superpowers but by local actors such as the communists and their opponents such as the Shah of Iran.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Reconfiguration of Iran's Political Elite: Rising Indoctrinated Technocrats with Saeid Golkar 53:00

il y a 3 years53:00

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May 19, 2022 Speaker: Saeid Golkar Ayatollah Khamenei is replacing the Islamic Republic's old cohort of specialists with newly indoctrinated technocrats, preparing the regime for a swift succession. In addition, reconfiguration of political elites is shifting the power equilibrium in the Islamic Republic, facilitating greater coordination between deep and visible states. Saeid Golkar is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Concurrently, he is a non-resident Senior Fellow on Middle East Policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) and The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in the UK.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Ehsan Yarshater's Yaddashtha: Reflections on Iranian History, Literature, Culture, and the Arts 1:26:47

il y a 3 years1:26:47

1:26:47

April 8, 2022 Speakers: Mahnaz Afkhami, Ali Banuazizi, Mandana Zandian Scholars reflect on Ehsan Yarshater's remarkable contributions and lasting impact on the study of Iranian history, literature, culture, and the arts. Dr. Yarshater (1920-2018) was Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University, the founder and director of Columbia’s Center for Iranian Studies, and the founding editor of the Encyclopædia Iranica. In 2016, he was awarded the Bita Prize in Persian Arts from the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University. Mahnaz Afkhami – Yarshater's Impact on The Foundation for Iranian Studies The pioneering work of the Foundation for Iranian Studies (FIS) began in 1981. It was a time of loss and confusion⁠—a characteristic of revolution and exile⁠—but even more challenging, a time of division, anger, and animosity among the diaspora. Ehasan Yarshater provided pivotal support in a variety of areas of the Foundation's work, especially by sharing and supporting the idea that the prevailing battle against all that was Persian in Iran's history, literature, and the arts was an existential threat to the self-definition of Iranians. He assembled a substantial research library without which the FIS journal, Iran Nameh (ed. Jalal Matini), could not fulfill its purpose. Ms. Afkhami will provide a brief summary of the interaction and collaboration between the team at FIS and Dr. Yarshater's expanse of interests and initiatives.Mahnaz Afkhami Ali Banuazizi – Yarshater's Formative and Lasting Contributions to Iranian Studies A brief overview of Professor Ehsan Yarshater’s lifetime contributions to the study of Iranian history and culture. He was not only the leading scholar of his generation in several areas of Iranian studies, but one who devoted his entire professional life to building institutions and initiating projects with lasting impact. With examples drawn from the recently published collection of Yarshater’s notes and reflections, the talk will also illustrate how widely he cast his eyes—beyond his own intellectual pursuits—on various aspects of Iran’s history, popular culture, and politics, offering constructive criticisms to advance the work of others.Ali Banuazizi Mandana Zandian – Understanding Yarshater Through His "Diaries" Diaries contains a series of notes written by Dr. Ehsan Yarshater—the most prominent Iranian studies scholar of our time— over a period of 26 years (1986-2012) for the journals Irannameh and Iranshenasi (ed. Jalal Matini). Yarshater's notes narrate his observations and evaluations in many thematic areas related to the study of Iran including various historical and political perspectives, as well as his comprehensive knowledge of Persian language, literature, and culture in different historical periods. Dr. Zandian discusses Diaries and Professor Yarshater's contribution to Persian literature, culture, and art.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Clash of Values: Islamic Fundamentalism Versus Liberal Nationalism with Mansoor Moaddel 1:01:37

il y a 3 years1:01:37

1:01:37

April 14, 2022 The Clash of Values provides groundbreaking empirical data to demonstrate how the collision between Islamic fundamentalism and liberal nationalism explains the region’s present and will determine its future. Analyzing data from over 60,000 face-to-face interviews of nationally representative samples of people in seven countries—Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey—Moaddel reveals the depth and breadth of the conflict of values. Dr. Mansoor Moaddel studies religion, ideology, political conflict, revolution and social change. His work currently addresses the causes and consequences of human values. He has carried out values surveys in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey. His latest survey project focused on a cross-national comparative analysis of religious fundamentalism in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey. He is currently engaged in a comparative cross-national panel survey in Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey in order to understand the dynamics of change in values and political engagements. His previous empirical research project was a comparative historical analysis of ideological production in the Islamic world in which he studied Islamic modernism in Egypt, India, and Iran between the late nineteenth century and early twentieth; liberal nationalism in Egypt, anti-clerical secularism in Iran, liberal Arabism and pan-Arab nationalism in Syria and Iraq in the first half of the twentieth century; and Islamic fundamentalism in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, and Syria in the second half. Moaddel’s teaching interests are in the areas of values survey, sociology of ideology, sociology of religion, political conflict and revolution, terrorism and political violence, religion and politics in the Middle East and North Africa, and statistics.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Legacy of Mohammad Mosaddegh with Nicolas Gorjestani 1:15:13

il y a 4 years1:15:13

1:15:13

March 3, 2022 Speaker: Nicolas Gorjestani Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran's prime minister in the early 1950s, was one of the most consequential national leaders of the twentieth century. Based on his recent book, Nicolas Gorjestani will examine Mosaddegh's life story, resistance strategy, governance, reform record, and overthrow. Mosaddegh locked horns with Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower in 1951-1953 over the nationalization of Iran's oil industry. In the event, Mosaddegh was overthrown in the first post-WWII regime change organized and supported by the British MI6 and the American CIA. The book combines insightful memoir, strategic analysis, economic assessment, and historical review based on primary sources in Iran, the UK, the US and the World Bank. Nicolas Gorjestani is a former senior official of the World Bank with economic development experience spanning more than four decades in countries undergoing transformational change. Born in Iran of Georgian heritage, Nicolas lives in Washington, DC.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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One Hundred Years of Extraterritoriality and Capitulations in Iran: 1828-1928 55:36

il y a 4 years55:36

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February 25, 2022 In the age of imperialism Iran was one of only a handful of non-Western states that maintained their sovereignty. However, as in other places such as the Ottoman Empire, China, and Siam, this sovereignty was punctured by unequal treaties that granted certain Western powers extraterritorial rights. These rights were justified by the absence of a rational legal system that would safeguard the rights of foreigners. To regain full sovereignty, therefore, Iranians had to give themselves a modern legal system. This talk traces the development of Iran's punctured sovereignty and efforts to restore sovereignty through legal reform from the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 to the abolition of the capitulations in 1928. Dr. Houchang Chehabi is a Professor of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, and an honorary professor in the School of History of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. His most recent book is Onomastic Reform: Family Names and State Building in Iran (Boston: Ilex Foundation, 2020).…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Film screening: "Immigrant Stories: Iranian-Americans of Silicon Valley" 54:31

il y a 4 years54:31

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November 12, 2021 The film screening of Immigrant Stories: Iranian-Americans of Silicon Valley was followed by a conversation with the film's co-directors, Nima Naimi, Alireza Sanayei, and Julian Gigola. About the documentary : Iranian Americans have achieved remarkable success across all professional fields, with many recognized internationally for their outstanding contributions. This film tells the first-hand immigration stories of several Iranian-Americans, covering 3 generations and over a dozen personal stories, and how Iranian-Americans have become one of the most successful diasporas in the U.S. About the co-directors: Nima Naimi is a first generation Iranian-American film director born and raised in the San Francisco, Bay Area. He has studied film in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, receiving his BFA degree in Motion Picture Directing at Columbia College Hollywood. While in college he directed a music video for European pop-star Benny Cristovao, which was nominated for an MTV European Music Award in 2012. Nima moved back to San Francisco after college and began his own production company, Spirit Film Productions Inc., where he’s been creating video content and marketing ads for Silicon Valley startups for the past 9 years. Alireza Sanayei , Co-Founder and director of Spirit Film Productions, studied animation in Iran. He started his career at the age 15 designing characters for IRIB2. He moved to San Francisco in 2013, and changed his major to film production. Alireza joined Nima and Julian to form Spirit Film Productions Inc. in 2017, where they began directing and producing “Immigrant Stories: Iranian-Americans of Silicon Valley,” a feature documentary about the life stories of 3 generations of Iranian-Americans. Under Spirit Film Productions, Ali has also made videos with several tech companies such as Pear VC, Google & Aurora Solar. Julian Gigola started his videography career after immigrating to the United States at the age of 17. He pursued his passion for photography by making several music videos, advertisements and creating websites. Soon after he joined Nima and Ali to co-direct the feature documentary, “Immigrant Stories: Iranian-Americans of Silicon Valley.”…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Global 1968, the Death of Takhti, and the Birth of the Iranian Revolution 1:08:00

il y a 4 years1:08:00

1:08:00

October 15, 2021 Naghmeh Sohrabi and Arash Davari This talk reconstructs rumors and demonstrations in 1968 around the death of Gholamreza Takhti, Iran's beloved gold-winning wrestling champion, recentering them in the history of the 1979 revolution and the global 1960s. The account of the demonstrations provided here explains a mobilization tactic used to great effect in the lead up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution: the staging of protests on the fortieth day of mourning. Locating this tactic in 1968, at a moment of global protest, and before ideological disputes between leftists and Islamists congealed in Iran, casts a spotlight on the indeterminate quality of the revolution as a lived event. The authors argue that discussions of “global 1968,” and approaches to global history more broadly construed, must account both for the local specificity and the global echoes signaled by events like the Takhti demonstrations. Naghmeh Sohrabi is the Charles (Corky) Goodman professor of Middle East History and the Director for Research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. She is working on her second book about the revolutionary generation in Iran tentatively titled The Intimate Lives of a Revolution: Iran 1979 . Her research on the revolution has received fellowships and grants from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Academy in Berlin. She is currently the president of the Association for Iranian Studies. Arash Davari is assistant professor of Politics at Whitman College. His research and teaching interests include modern, postcolonial, and contemporary political theory; history and theory; aesthetics and politics; and state formation and social change in the Middle East, with a focus on modern Iran. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently completing a book manuscript about the 1979 revolution in Iran that situates those events in the context of global transformations in the 1970s and political theory.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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On Ebrahim Golestan: An Inquiry into "Tide and Mist" 55:00

il y a 4 years55:00

55:00

November 5, 2021 Speaker: Sahand Abidi Sahand Abidi is an essayist and critic. He studied drama at the fine arts faculty of Tehran University. He worked as a playwright, dramaturge, assistant director and actor in theatre, and taught courses on the history of theater. He has worked in different capacities on numerous films, documentaries and plays. Many of his essays on aspects of modern Iranian theatre, cinema, and literature (on Beyzaie, Chubak, Golestan, Kimiai, Nalbandian, etc.) have been published in various journals and books. He was a panelist in Stanford’s conference celebrating the life and work of Bahram Beyzaie. This talk is in Persian.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Image and Words in the Films and Stories of Ebrahim Golestan 39:02

il y a 4 years39:02

39:02

October 22, 2021 Speaker: Ameneh Yousefi Ameneh Yousefi was born in Hamedan city in Iran. She received her Doctoral in Persian Literature from the University of Karaj. She has done several auditorial, visual and animated projects as an author for Local National Broadcasting. She currently teaches Persian Literature in Ganjname University in Hamedan City and is researching the representation of intellectual figures in ten contemporary Persian novels. Her talk covers the inter-textual relations between words and images in Ebrahim Golestan’s films and fiction. This talk is in Persian.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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White Torture: The Infamy of Solitary Confinement in Iran with Narges Mohammadi 1:12:15

il y a 4 years1:12:15

1:12:15

September 29, 2021 Narges Mohammadi in conversation with Darius Rejali and Abbas Milani. Narges Mohammadi is Deputy Director of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC). She was elected as President of the Executive Committee of the National Council of Peace in Iran, a broad coalition against war and for the promotion of human rights. She has campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty in Iran and was awarded the Per Anger Prize by the Swedish government for her human rights work in 2011. In a two volume study, called White Torture, she underscores how solitary confinement is indeed an insidious form of torture. She has interviewed many of Iran’s dissidents who have been subjected to solitary confinement. Based on these conversations, she has also produced a documentary. Darius Rejali, professor of political science at Reed College, is an internationally recognized expert on government torture and interrogation. Iranian-born, Rejali has spent his career reflecting on violence, specifically, on the causes, consequences, and meaning of modern torture in our world. His award-winning work spans concerns in political science, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, and critical social theory. He is the author of "Torture and Democracy" (2007), "Torture and Modernity: Self, Society, and State in Modern Iran" (1994), and many related articles. He consults as an expert for international scholarly projects on torture prevention, serves as an adviser to nongovernmental organizations that work on torture-related issues, and has submitted expert testimony for Guantanamo (Al Ginco v. Obama) and Abu Ghraib related cases (Al Shimari v. CACI International). He has been interviewed widely, from Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! to David Frost on Al Jazeera, from the BBC to the Washington Post. Abbas Milani is the Director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a research fellow at The Hoover Institution. He taught at Tehran University, Faculty of Law and Political Science until 1986. He has written and translated many books and articles. Most recently, he edited and wrote the introduction for "A Window into Modern Iran: The Ardeshir Zahedi Papers at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives," and "Saadi and Humanism" with Maryam Mirzadeh.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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SGS Summer Film Festival: Cafe Transit 1:01:00

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August 11, 2021 Speaker: Fereshteh Sadreorafaei Fereshteh Sadreorafaei was born in Tehran, Iran in 1962. From a young age, she attended the Children and Adolescents' Intellectual Development Center. There, she studied theater and puppetry and staged several puppet shows. From 1974-1976, she was a student at Pars National Ballet under the supervision of Abdullah Nazemi. Due to the Iranian Revolution and closure of universities, she was unable to acquire a university education. During which time she got married and started a family. She worked as a puppet actress in a children’s TV series, using what she learned from the Intellectual Development Center. Her first professional theater performance was in 1983, followed by her debut in cinema in 1985. She went on to narrate and puppeteer in 17 series and films, directed four TV series for children and teenagers, acted in 20 films, and acted in one unreleased TV series. She has collaborated with directors such as Jafar Panahi, Kambozia Partovi, Reza Mirkarimi, Abdolreza Kahani, Mohammad Rasoulov, Maziar Miri, Narges Abyar, Massoud Bakhshi and, in her latest film Ghahraman, Asghar Farhadi. She has been nominated for and received numerous awards, including several for Café Transit. About the film: Written and directed by Kambuzia Partovi (2005). Synopsis: In a village near Iran's border with Turkey, Reyhan (Fereshteh Sadreorafaei), a young woman with two children, faces a difficult choice when her husband dies. Instead of marrying her brother-in-law (Parviz Parastoei), as required by traditional law, she chooses to support her family by reopening her late husband's restaurant. Part of Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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President Carter's Handling of the Iranian Revolution and Hostage Crisis: Discussion with Kai Bird 55:50

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July 18, 2021 Kai Bird discusses President Jimmy Carter's interaction with Iran as a part of his new book, "The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter" (Crown, 2021). More about the book: "Four decades after Ronald Reagan’s landslide win in 1980, Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency is often labeled a failure; indeed, many Americans view Carter as the only ex-president to have used the White House as a stepping-stone to greater achievements. But in retrospect the Carter political odyssey is a rich and human story, marked by both formidable accomplishments and painful political adversity. In this deeply researched, brilliantly written account, Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Kai Bird expertly unfolds the Carter saga as a tragic tipping point in American history." Kai Bird is a Pulitzer Prize winning historian who has published biographies of John J. McCloy, McGeorge Bundy, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Robert Ames—and now "The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter." He has also authored a memoir about his childhood in the Middle East. He is the Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Nonviolent Revolution of Iranian Women Writers: A Conversation with Farzaneh Milani 52:06

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June 24, 2021 Professor Farzaneh Milani discusses Iranian women writers and the Iranian women’s movement with Professor Abbas Milani. The conversation is a part of the on-going series on the Iranian women’s movement. Farzaneh Milani is Raymond J. Nelson Professor of Iranian and Gender Studies and Cavaliers’ Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Virginia. She is the former Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures and past Director of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and holds a joint appointment in both departments. Milani has published books and articles in Persian and English. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Ms. Magazine, Reader's Digest International, and USA Today, among others. She has presented more than 270 lectures nationally and internationally. Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Losing Our Minds, Coming to Our Senses: Sensory readings of Persian literature (A Hafezian Banquet) 36:19

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May 27, 2021 Literary research premised on sensory studies challenges above all the monopolization of modern Persian literary criticism by socio-political discourses, which generally rely on content-based approaches constructing "committed readings" of literary production. "Committed readings" circumscribe the significance of the literary by allowing the text to only be a site of resistance and calls to action, thus foreclosing opportunities for alternative readings. Sensory studies challenge the limits of such approaches, and this confrontation takes place in the fields of aesthetics-stylistics and literary readings. Mehdi Khorrami, Emeritus Professor, New York University, is the author of "Literary Subterfuge and Contemporary Persian Fiction: Who Writes Iran" (2014), and "Modern Reflections of Classical Traditions in Persian Fiction" (2003), and a number of essays and book chapters on the rhetorical and aesthetic dynamics of Persian modernist writing and contemporary Persian prison literature. He has also co-edited and co-translated a number of books, including: "Fayz Muhammad Katib Hazrah’s Afghan Genealogy and Memoir of the Revolution" (2019), "Moments of Silence: Authenticity in the Cultural Expressions of the Iran-Iraq War, 1980–1988" (2016), "Vol. 4 of The History of Afghanistan: Fayz Muhammad Kātib’s Sirāj al-tawārıkh" (2016), "A Persian Mosaic: Essays: Essays on Persian Language, Literature and Film in Honor of M. R. Ghanoonparvar" (2015), "Vol. 3 of The History of Afghanistan: Fayz Muhammad Kātib’s Sirāj al-tawārıkh" (2013), "Sohrab’s Wars: Counter-Discourses of Contemporary Persian Fiction: A Collection of Short Stories and a Film Script" (2008), "Critical Encounters: Essays on Persian Literature and Culture in Honor of Peter J. Chelkowski" (2007), "Another Sea, Another Shore: Persian Stories of Migration" (2004), "A Feast in the Mirror: Stories by Contemporary Iranian Women" (2000), "A Feast in the Mirror: Stories by Contemporary Iranian Women" (in Persian, 2002), "A World Between: Poems and Short Stories by Iranian-Americans" (1999). Prof. Khorrami’s lecture was originally accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation and the video is forthcoming. The images used are accessible at the following links: "Allegory of Sight and Smell" (1618) by Jan Brueghel the Elder, Hendrick van Balen the Elder, and Gerard Seghers, courtesy Museo del Prado, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jan_Brueghel_(I),_Hendrick_van_Balen_(I)_and_Gerard_Seghers_-_Allegory_of_Sight_and_Smell.jpg "The Senses of Hearing, Touch and Taste" (1618) by Jan Brueghel the Elder, courtesy Museo del Prado, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:File-Bruegel_d._Ä.,_Jan_-The_Senses_of_Hearing,_Touch_and_Taste_-_1618.jpg…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Economic Cost of the Islamic Revolution and War for Iran with Mohammad Reza Farzanegan 31:00

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May 20, 2021 This study estimates the joint effect of a new political regime and war against Iraq, on Iran’s per capita Gross Domestic Product (‘GDP,’ constant 2010 US$) for the period 1978–1988, during the revolution/war. Professor Mohammad Reza Farzanegan uses a synthetic control approach, whereby a synthetic Iran is constructed as a weighted average of other Middle East and North Africa (‘MENA’)/Organization of the Petroleum Exporting (‘OPEC’) countries to match the average level of some key per capita GDP correlates over the period 1970–1977 as well as the evolution of the actual Iranian per capita GDP during that period. He finds a sizable negative effect of the joint treatment. The average Iranian lost an accumulated sum of approximately US $34,660 during 1978–1988 (i.e. the average annual real per capita income loss of US $3,150). This loss equals 40% of the real income per capita, which an Iranian could earn in the absence of revolution and war. Mohammad Reza Farzanegan is a Professor in Economics of the Middle East (since 2012) at the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) & School of Business and Economics of Philipps-Universität Marburg in Germany. He is the coordinating professor for the international master study program of Economics of the Middle East in Marburg. He is an ERF Research Fellow, and CESifo Research Network Fellow. His main areas of research are political economy, development economics, energy economics, and empirical institutional economics. His research has been published in edited volumes and international journals. He gained his PhD in Economics from the Technische Universität Dresden with the research grant of DAAD (2006-2009). He received the Georg Forster Research Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for his project at ZEW Mannheim & TU Dresden (2010-2012). He obtained his MSc degree in Energy Economics & Marketing from University of Tehran (2000-2003) and his BA in Theoretical Economics from Allameh Tabatabaei University in Tehran (1995-1999).…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Iranian Women's Movement: A Conversation with Kian Katouzian 58:56

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May 6, 2021 Kian Katouzian discusses her life as a working woman in Iran, participating in the opposition against the Shah and then against Khomeini before leaving Iran for a life of exile in France. She discusses the feelings of loneliness and disorientation while living in exile. She earned a master’s degree in education in Iran in the 1960s, was a professor of history and geography for more than twenty years, and was head of a high school. She was the editor-in-chief of "Jonbeche," a newspaper opposed to the Shah’s regime.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Translating Ulysses into Persian: A Century of Censorship with Akram Pedramnia 55:51

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April 22, 2021 Translating a work that employs inventive literary techniques is an already arduous task, however, negotiating with a system of imposed censorship makes the process of translating and publishing increasingly more intricate. In this talk, Akram Pedramnia explores the challenges of translating modernist works, like "Lolita," "Tender is the Night," as well as "Ulysses," under a system of imposed censorship and discusses the methods she employs to evade it. Akram Pedramnia is an Iranian-Canadian author and translator. She has published three novels in Persian. Among others, she has translated F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "Tender is the Night" (2009), Vladimir Nabokov’s "Lolita" (2013), and James Joyce’s "Ulysses" (2019). She is a recipient of the Friends of the 2019 Zurich James Joyce Foundation Scholarship and the 2020 Joyce Translation Scholarship and Looren Residency. Her translation of "Ulysses" received a Literature Ireland Translation Grant. She has been a guest speaker in the English Literature Department of New York University during the academic years of 2019 and 2020 and a lecturer at University College Dublin in 2018. She is an active member of the International James Joyce Foundation. Event is in Persian/Farsi. Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Iran's Experiment with Parliamentary Government with Mangol Bayat 55:44

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For the past several decades, scholars have studied and written about the Iranian constitutional revolution with the 1979 Islamic Revolution as a subtext, obscuring the secularist trend that characterized its very nature. Constitutionalist leaders represented a diverse composite of beliefs, yet they all shared a similar vision of a new Iran, one that included far-reaching modernizing reforms and concepts rooted in the European Enlightenment. The second national assembly (majles), during its brief two-year term, aspired to legislate these reforms in one of the most important experiments in parliamentary governance. In her recent book Iran’s Experiment with Parliamentary Government: The Second Majles 1909-1911 (Syracuse University Press, 2020), Mangol Bayat provides a much-needed detailed analysis of this historic episode, examining the national and international actors, and the political climate that engendered one crisis after another, ultimately leading to its fateful end. Bayat highlights the radical transformation of old institutions and the innovation of new ones, and most importantly, shows how this term provided a reasonably successful model of parliament imposing its will on the executive power that was primarily composed of old-guard, elite leaders. At the same time, Bayat challenges the traditional perception among scholars that reform attempts failed due to sectarian politics and ideological differences. She also describes in detail the role of the European nineteenth-early twentieth century Great Game in Asia, and more specifically the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention dividing Iran into two spheres of influence, in causing the abrupt closing of the second majles that temporarily halted the reform project. Mangol Bayat has taught Middle Eastern history at several universities, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Iowa, Harvard University, and Shiraz University (formerly Pahlavi University). She is the author of Mysticism and Dissent: Socioreligious Thought in Qajar Iran and Iran's First Revolution: Shi'ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Britain and the Abdication of Reza Shah with Shaul Bakhash 57:26

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When Britain and the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Iran in August 1941 during the Second World War, in violation of Iran’s policy of neutrality, their principal purpose was to use Iran as a bridge to supply a Russia hard-pressed by Hitler’s army with vital military and other supplies. Believing Reza Shah would not cooperate with the Allies to the degree they required, Britain and Russia engineered the shah’s abdication, and the British took him into exile, first to the island of Mauritius, then to Johannesburg where he passed the last two years of his life. This lecture will describe the evolution of the decision to force Reza Shah to surrender his throne and the shah’s final, troubled journey through Iran and into exile. Shaul Bakhash is the Clarence Robinson Professor of History Emeritus at George Mason University and a specialist in the history of modern Iran. He is the author of Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution (Basic Books, 1986), Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy and Reform under the Qajars, 1858-1896 (Ithaca, 1978), and most recently The Fall of Reza Shah: The Abdication, Exile and Death of Modern Iran's Founder (I.B. Tauris, 2021). His many articles on Iranian and Middle East history have appeared in numerous books and journals. He has also written for the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, Middle East Journal, Democracy and other publications. His Op-ed essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers. Previous to his academic career, he worked for many years as a journalist in Iran as a reporter, commentator, and editor for Kayhan newspapers and reported from Iran for the Economist, the (London) Times, and the Financial Times. He was educated at Harvard and Oxford Universities and has been awarded fellowships by the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, The Guggenheim Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Exposing Economic Corruption in Iran: A Journalist's Odyssey into Exile with Mohammad Mosaed 56:35

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Mohammad Mosaed is an Iranian investigative journalist who wrote and reported on economic corruption in Iran. He was arrested in November 2019, banned from working, and sentenced to 4 years and 9 months in prison. He escaped the country while appealing the final verdict and is currently in Turkey. Mohammad received the 2018 Best Economic Reporter Award, the 2020 CPJ Press Freedom Award, and the 2020 Deutsche Welle Award for Freedom of Expression for his reporting work. He was recently named one of the top ten most pressing cases of press freedom abuses around the world, as identified by the One Free Press Coalition from The Washington Post. Mr. Mosaed will discuss his work as a journalist and his findings on economic corruption in Iran. Conversation will be in Persian/Farsi.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Song Sparrow: Film Screening & Discussion with Farzaneh Omidvarnia 36:14

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Farzaneh Omidvarnia’s 2019 short film “Song Sparrow” (11 minutes) follows a group of refugees trying to reach a safe country in search of a better life. Based on real events in Austria in 2015 and Ireland in 2019, the film creatively uses dolls and no dialogue to tell the story of refugees who pay a smuggler to transport them in a refrigerated truck—the freezing temperatures turning their hopes for a better future into a fierce struggle for survival. The film asks viewers to reflect on whether "It is better to go or to stay?" Or perhaps more accurately, "Is it worse to stay than to go?" "Is a large swath of humanity entrapped by events befallen their lands many centuries before they were born?" Farzaneh Omidvarnia was born in Iran and graduated from the University of Tehran, Faculty of Fine Arts. She received a PhD in design in 2015 from the Technical University of Denmark. Following her graduation, she began to focus on the creation of fabric sculptures and writing short stories. Her artwork soon appeared in several art exhibitions in Europe and Iran, and she published her first collection of short stories in 2016. In 2017, she directed and produced her first animated film “To Be” (6 minutes, drama). The movie was recognized internationally and won prizes in various festivals. Her second film “Song Sparrow” is qualified for an Oscar in 2021. She is currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Beholding Beauty: Sa'di of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry 55:53

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Professor Domenico Ingenito discusses his new book Beholding Beauty: Sa'di of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry (Brill, December 2020). The book explores the relationship between sexuality, politics, and spirituality in the lyrics of Sa'di Shirazi (d. 1282 CE), one of the most revered masters of classical Persian literature. Relying on a variety of sources, including unstudied manuscripts, Professor Ingenito presents the so-called "inimitable smoothness" of Sa'di's lyric style as a serene yet multifaceted window into the uncanny beauty of the world, the human body, and the realm of the unseen. "Beholding Beauty constitutes the first attempt to study Sa'di's lyric meditations on beauty in the context of the major artistic, scientific and intellectual trends of his time. By charting unexplored connections between Islamic philosophy and mysticism, obscene verses and courtly ideals of love, Professor Ingenito approaches Sa'di's literary genius from the perspective of sacred homoeroticism and the psychology of performative lyricism in their historical context." Domenico Ingenito is Director of the Program on Central Asia and Assistant Professor of Persian literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests center on medieval Persian poetry, visual culture of Iran and Central Asia, gender and translations studies, and geocriticism. His most recent articles are: "Hafez's 'Shirāzi Turk': A Geopoetical Approach;" and "'A Marvelous Painting': the Erotic Dimension of Sa'di's Praise Poetry;” and "Sultan Maḥmūd's New Garden in Balkh: An Exercise in Literary Archaeology for the Study of Ghaznawid Ephemeral Architecture."…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present with John Ghazvinian 56:13

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Dr. John Ghazvinian discusses his recent book America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present (Knopf, 2021). In recent times, the United States and Iran have seemed closer to war than peace, but that is not where their story began. When America was in its infancy, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams turned to the history of the Persian Empire as they looked for guidance on how to run their new country. And in the following century, Iranian newspapers heralded America as an ideal that their own government might someday emulate. How, then, did the two nations become the adversaries that they are today? In his new book, Dr. Ghazvinian traces the complex story of America and Iran over three centuries. Drawing on years of research conducted in both countries—including access to Iranian government archives rarely available to Western scholars—he leads us through the four seasons of US-Iranian relations: from the spring of mutual fascination, where Iran, sick of duplicitous Britain and Russia interfering in its affairs, sought a relationship with the United States, to the long, dark winter of hatred that we are yet to see end. A revealing account, America and Iran lays bare when, where and how it all went wrong—and why it didn't have to be this way. John Ghazvinian is Executive Director of the Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an author, historian and former journalist, specializing in the history of US-Iran relations. Since 2008, he has been under contract with Knopf to write America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present—a comprehensive new survey of the bilateral relationship, based on years of archival research in both Iran and the United States. He is also author of Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil (Harcourt, 2007), as well as coeditor of American and Muslim Worlds before 1900 (Bloomsbury, 2020). He has written for such publications as Newsweek, The Nation, the Sunday Times and the Huffington Post, and has taught modern Middle East history at a number of colleges and universities in the Philadelphia area. He earned his doctorate in history at Oxford University and was the recipient of a "Public Scholar" fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2016-2017, as well as a fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation's special initiative on Islam in 2009-2010.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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In Solitary: Then the Fish Swallowed Him with Amir Arian 54:37

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Amir Ahmadi Arian discusses his first novel in English, Then the Fish Swallowed Him published by HarperCollins in 2020. “Yunus Turabi, a bus driver in Tehran, leads an unremarkable life. A solitary man since the unexpected deaths of his father and mother years ago, he is decidedly apolitical—even during the driver’s strike and its bloody end. But everyone has their breaking point, and Yunus has reached his. Handcuffed and blindfolded, he is taken to the infamous Evin prison for political dissidents. Inside this stark, strangely ordered world, his fate becomes entwined with Hajj Saeed, his personal interrogator. The two develop a disturbing yet interdependent relationship, with each playing his assigned role in a high stakes psychological game of cat and mouse, where Yunus endures a mind-bending cycle of solitary confinement and interrogation. In their startlingly intimate exchanges, Yunus’s life begins to unfold—from his childhood memories growing up in a freer Iran to his heartbreaking betrayal of his only friend. As Yunus struggles to hold on to his sanity and evade Saeed’s increasingly undeniable accusations, he must eventually make an impossible choice: continue fighting or submit to the system of lies upholding Iran’s power.” Amir Arian is a critically acclaimed Iranian writer currently living in New York City. He has published two novels and a book of nonfiction in Iran, and translated novels by Paul Auster, Cormac McCarthy, P.D. James, and E.L. Doctorow from English to Persian. In English his short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Paris Review, London Review of Books, Guernica, and Lithub, among others.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Book Talk: Man of My Time with Dalia Sofer 51:20

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Set in Tehran and New York, Man of My Time is the story of Hamid Mozaffarian, who is as alienated from himself as he is from the world. After decades of working with ambivalence for the Iranian government, Hamid travels on a diplomatic mission to New York, where he encounters his estranged family and retrieves the ashes of his father. Tucked into a mint tin in Hamid’s pocket, the ashes propel him into an excavation of a lifetime of betrayals, forcing him to confront his past. Exploring variations of loss, Man of My Time is not only about family and memory, but also about the relationship between captor and captive, country and citizen, and individual and history. Sofer will discuss the depiction of conflict not as a clash of opponents, but as an interconnection of two entities; this includes the conflict of each character with him or herself. She will also address the fragmentation caused by conflict, the impossibility to tell a fixed story, and the impulse to search for the origin of things when no knowable origins exist. Finally, she will speak about creating a narrative that reflects the brokenness of a world—and a man—in search of their own humanity. Dalia Sofer is the author of the novels Man of My Time (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020)—a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and The Septembers of Shiraz (Ecco Press, 2007)—selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and published in sixteen countries. A recipient of a Whiting Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and the Sami Rohr Choice Award, she has contributed essays and reviews to various publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The LA Review of Books, and The Believer. Born in Tehran, Iran, Sofer currently lives in New York City.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Ala Mohseni Discusses His New Documentary "Ayyar e Tanha" About Bahram Beyzaie 59:13

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Filmmaker Ala Mohseni will discuss his new documentary "Ayyar e Tanha." It documents the particular situation in Iran that forced an acclaimed and distinguished artist like Bahram Beyzaie to leave his homeland and live in exile. Please watch the film at your convenience and join for the live discussion: https://www.radiofarda.com/a/30905487.html Please note: the film and the conversation are in Persian/Farsi. Born in Tehran, Iran, Ala Mohseni began pursuing his interest in theater in 1991, while studying physics. He acted in plays by several well-known Iranian directors, including Bahram Beyzaie; he then completed a course in filmmaking at the IYCS (Iranian Youth Cinema Society). In 2004, he directed “The Life”, a documentary on one of the pioneers of Iranian cinema, Nosrat Karimi. This film has been prohibited to screen in Iran. He later attended a masterclass workshop by the legendary Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, then a BBC documentary workshop. Ala Mohseni’s 2008 documentary “My City Pizza”, about the huge popularity of pizza in the Iranian capital Tehran, was praised for its comedy and awarded in festivals around the world. The IDFA awarded Mohseni the Jan Vrijman Fund in 2009 for his project “Hidden Kisses” – a film he was unable to complete because of civil strife in Iran after the 2009 presidential election. He moved to California a year later and earned an MFA in Film at the California College of the Arts. His latest films are “Kiosk, A Generation Destroyed By Madness”, “My Stealthy Freedom”, "Metamorphosis, Iranian Style", “Kamran Tull”. Bahram Beyzaie is one of Iran's most acclaimed filmmakers, playwrights, and scholars of the history of Iranian theater, both secular and religious. He is currently the Daryabari Visiting Lecturer in the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Iranian Women: The Achilles Heel of the Islamic Republic of Iran with Homa Sarshar 53:56

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Homa Sarshar discusses her life and work, and the role of women in Iran. Homa Sarshar is a published author, award-winning journalist, writer, and media personality. She is the author of four books and the editor of eleven other volumes, including five volumes of the Iranian Women's Studies Foundation Journal and four volumes of The History of Contemporary Iranian Jews. Her latest book Sha’ban Jafari was the number one best seller Persian book in Iran and abroad in the year 2003. From 1964 to 1978, she worked as a correspondent, reporter, and columnist for Zan-e Ruz weekly magazine and Kayhan daily newspaper in Iran. During this period, she also worked as a television producer, director, and talk show host for National Iranian Radio & Television. In 1978, Sarshar moved to Los Angeles where she resumed her career as a freelance journalist, radio and television producer, and on-air host. An established women’s rights activist, she served a five-year term on the board of the Iranian Women Studies Foundation, has worked with Human Rights Watch, her two-volume memoir (Dar Koocheh Paskoocheh Ha-ye Ghorbat) was the first publication of a Jewish Iranian memoir, one of the first Persian memoirs after the revolution published outside Iran, as well as one of the very few examples of memoir-writing by an Iranian woman at the time of its publication. In 1995, she founded the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History (CIJOH) in Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization that gathered over 1,600 historically significant photographs and documents, and recorded over 120 oral interviews with elders and leaders of the community. In 2006, she founded Honar Foundation to provide social and financial support to all Iranian American artists in need to ensure that these unique talents are served in the best way possible and their lives are improved. Throughout her 50-year career with Iranian and Iranian-American print, radio, and television, Sarshar has done more than 3000 interviews and has produced and anchored as many radio and television programs. She has also written, directed, and produced a collection of twenty video documentaries on exiled Iranian writers, poets, and artists, some of which have been acquired by the Library of Congress for the library’s permanent audiovisual archive.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Book Talk: Out of Mesopotamia with Salar Abdoh 58:24

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April 15, 2021 An unprecedented glimpse into "endless war" from a Middle Eastern perspective, Salar Abdoh’s novel, "Out of Mesopotamia," follows in the tradition of the Western canon of martial writers–from Hemingway and Orwell to Tim O'Brien and Philip Caputo–but then subverts and expands upon the genre before completely blowing it apart. Drawing from his firsthand experience of being embedded with Shia militias on the ground in Iraq and Syria, Abdoh gives agency to the voiceless while offering a meditation on war that is moving, humane, darkly funny, and resonantly true. Salar Abdoh was born in Iran and splits his time between Tehran and New York City. He is the author of the novels "Tehran at Twilight," "The Poet Game," and "Opium"; and he is the editor of "Tehran Noir." He teaches in the MFA program at the City College of New York. Out of Mesopotamia is his latest novel.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Blue Logos and Women's Wisdom with Shahrnush Parsipur 52:23

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October 15, 2020 Shahrnush Parsipur was born in Tehran, Iran and received her BA in Sociology from the University of Tehran. She wrote her first novel at the age of 28, Sag va Zememstaneh Boland (The Dog and the Long Winter) and later that year was imprisoned for several months for protesting the execution of two activists. She wrote her second novel in France, Majerahayeh Sadeh va Kuchake Ruheh Derakht (Plain and Small Adventures of the Spirit of the Tree) in 1977.She has been imprisoned several times in Iran for her writings which often focus on themes of women, gender, and sexuality. After one period in prison, she published her first novel Touba va Maanayeh Shab (Touba and the Meaning of Night) in 1980. She also wrote a memoir recalling her time in prison (the English translation is titled Kissing the Sword). In 1990 she wrote Zanan-e bedun-e Mardan (Women Without Men), a collection of short stories. Her other works include: Aqle Abi (The Blue Reason), Shiva, Bar Baaleh Baad Neshestan (On the Wings of Wind), Adabeh Sarfeh Chai Dar Hozooreh Gorg (Tea Ceremony in Presence of Wolf), Avizeh-hayeh Bolour (Crystalline Pendants), Men From Various Civilizations, and Asieh dar Miane Do Donya (Asieh between Two Worlds). Her books have been translated into several languages. She has also written more than 400 articles about modern Iranian literature in different literary publications. Her book Blue Logos has just been translated in English by M.R. Ghanoonparvar. The prominent photographer and filmmaker, Shirin Neshat, created a full-length film based on Women Without Men and a short film project based on Touba and the Meaning of the Night. She has received numerous awards and holds an honorary doctorate from Brown University. She will be in conversation with Dr. Abbas Milani about her recent book, her work, and women's wisdom, in the ongoing series on Iranian women.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Book Talk: Disoriental with Negar Djavadi 59:30

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Négar Djavadi was born in Iran in 1969 to a family of intellectuals opposed to the regimes both of the Shah, then of Khomeini. She arrived in France at the age of eleven, having crossed the mountains of Kurdistan on horseback with her mother and sister. She is a screenwriter and lives in Paris. Disoriental is her first novel. Her second novel comes out in France in September 2020.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Film Screening and Panel Discussion: NASRIN 1:01:58

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1:01:58

NASRIN is an immersive portrait of attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, one of the world’s most prominent human rights activists and political prisoners. Written and directed by Jeff Kaufman, produced by Marcia Ross, and secretly filmed in Iran by women and men who risked arrest to make it, the film also tells the story of Iran’s remarkably resilient women’s rights movement. Nasrin has long fought for the rights of women, children, LGBT prisoners, religious minorities, journalists and artists, and those facing the death penalty. She was arrested in June 2018 for representing women who were protesting Iran’s mandatory hijab law, and she was sentenced to 38 years in prison, plus 148 lashes. From prison, she has continued to challenge the authorities. An Amnesty International petition calling for her release received over a million signatures from 200 countries. Panelists: Shirin Ebadi, Jeff Kaufman, Reza Khandan, Abbas Milani, Marietje Schaake…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Muslim Women and Political Leadership - Shahla Haeri 1:00:19

il y a 5 years1:00:19

1:00:19

"Political mobility and freedom to choose are the quintessential mandate of women in the second decade of the 21st century. From Northwest Africa to Southeast Asia, and anywhere in-between Muslim women are mobilizing, joining their voices and marshalling their resources, determined to have a seat at their society’s political table. Increasingly educated and well informed, women have challenged the rigid patriarchal constructions of gender (in)justice, political/legal inequalities, and gender hierarchy in the Muslim world. Not wishing to feed the tired universalized colonial narrative of victimized and passive ‘Muslim women,’ nor willing to suffer the intolerant ‘fundamentalist’ and essentialist discourse of Islamists in their own home countries, women activists and scholars of all backgrounds have shown considerable awareness of and reflexivity to local and global political dynamics. They have questioned the male domination of political authority and monopoly of sacred knowledge and have challenged patriarchal institutions of power on both fronts. Unwilling to subordinate their piety to misogynist ‘orthodoxies,’ women scholars of Islam have pursued a two-pronged strategy: to contribute to religious knowledge, and to develop a ‘feminist theology’ based on modernist and interpretive reading of the scripture: one that is egalitarian, tolerant, and inclusive. Women’s political authority, however, has received less systematic attention; it is highly contested and fraught with tensions and contradictions, and has faced a much tougher patriarchal backlash from within the Muslim world. Women’s political participation and leadership is indispensable for meaningful national development, and women’s empowerment must be on the political, legal and social reform agendas." Shahla Haeri is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and a former director of the Women's Studies Program at Boston University, one of the pioneers of Iranian Anthropology, and has produced cutting-edge ethnographies of Iran, Pakistan and the Muslim world. Her landmark books include her classic ethnography, Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi’i Iran (1989/2014), translated into Arabic and reprinted frequently, highlighting the tenacious but secretive custom of temporary marriage in Iran; No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women (2002/2004) widens the ethnographic scope to make visible lives of educated and professional Muslim women. Her latest book, The Unforgettable Queens of Islam: Succession, Authority, Gender (Cambridge University Press), is a pioneering book on the extraordinary lives and legacies of a few remarkable Muslim women sovereigns from across the Muslim world. Dr. Haeri’s academic and creative oeuvre includes her video documentary, “Mrs. President: Women and Political Leadership in Iran” (2002, 46 min.) focusing on six women presidential contenders during the Iranian presidential election of 2001. She is the recipient of many fellowships, grants, and postdoctoral fellowships.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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SGS Summer Film Festival: Chicken with Plums - Marjane Satrapi 56:22

il y a 5 years56:22

56:22

This year the Stanford Global Studies Summer Film Festival will be held virtually. Join us from your home as we watch seven films from around the world that focus on the theme “Love in the Time of Cinema.” The Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies and France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies invite you to watch Chicken with Plums from home at a time that works for your schedule, then join us on Zoom for a discussion with the writer and co-director, Marjane Satrapi. Please RSVP to receive the Zoom information. About Marjane Satrapi: Marjane Satrapi is the author of Persepolis, Persepolis 2, Embroideries, Chicken with Plums, and several children’s books. She co-wrote and co-directed the animated feature film version of Persepolis, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. She regularly contributes to magazines and newspapers throughout the world. About the film: Directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi (France, Germany, Belgium, 2011). Watch the trailer here. Synopsis: Teheran, 1958. Since his beloved violin was broken, Nasser Ali Khan, one of the most renowned musicians of his day, has lost all taste for life. Finding no instrument worthy of replacing it, he decides to confine himself to bed to await death. As he hopes for its arrival, he plunges into deep reveries, with dreams as melancholic as they are joyous, taking him back to his youth and even to a conversation with Azraël, the Angel of Death, who reveals the future of his children... As pieces of the puzzle gradually fit together, the poignant secret of his life comes to light: a wonderful story of love which inspired his genius and his music...…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Iranian Women's Movement: A Conversation with Mansoureh Shojaee 1:28:50

il y a 5 years1:28:50

1:28:50

Mansoureh Shojaee has been one of the leaders of the Iranian women’s rights movement for over 20 years and involved in politics for more than 30 years. She was a librarian at the National Library in Tehran for 22 years and worked as a journalist, freelance writer and literary translator for French. She will discuss the women’s rights movement in Iran with Dr. Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford. The conversation will be followed by a Q&A session with viewers. The event will be live-translated from Persian/Farsi to English. From 1994 to 2004, she worked with blind children and enabled them to access literature by teaching them the use of audio books, as a part of the Children’s Book Council of Iran (for which she received the 2010 Testimonial Statue Honors Award). For her efforts, she received the 2010 Testimonial Statute Honors Award from the IBBYP. In 2000, Ms. Shojaee co-founded (with the journalist, feminist and political activist Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani and other like-minded women) the women’s cultural center Markaze Farhangi-ye Zanab, where she opened the Women’s Library Sadige Dolatabadi in 2003. She also worked with other organizations including UNICEF to develop traveling libraries geared towards Iranian women and children. A close confidant of Shirin Ebadi (the Iranian 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate living in exile in London), she was committed to fulfilling Ebadi’s dream of an Iranian women’s museum, however the project was banned in its early stages. In 2008, she started The Iranian Women’s Movement Museum, a research project, with a group of women activists, artists, and academics. She is also the founder of the online platform the Iran Women’s Movement Documentation Center. She is one of the creators of the One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality and co-founder of the website The Feminist School. Because of her dedicated efforts, she was imprisoned several times in Iran, most recently in 2009. After a month, she was released on bail and was free to leave Iran. Having already suffered a four-year travel ban, she promptly went into exile. She is the author of Sharzade’s Sisters: Women in Iran (2013). She continues to work as a women’s rights activist, writer and journalist while she remains in exile.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Iranian Women's Movement: A Conversation with Mahnaz Afkhami 57:52

il y a 5 years57:52

57:52

Mahnaz Afkhami will discuss her experience with the Iranian women’s movement. Conversation will be in English. Mahnaz Afkhami is the founder, president, and CEO of Women’s Learning Partnership and former Minister for Women’s Affairs in Iran. Afkhami has been a leading advocate of women's rights for more than four decades, having founded and served as director and president of several international non-governmental organizations that focus on advancing women's status. Afkhami also serves on advisory boards and steering committees of a number of national and international organizations including the Freer/Sackler Galleries of The Smithsonian Institution, the Foundation for Iranian Studies, The Global Fund for Women, Women’s Learning Partnership, Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, and the World Movement for Democracy. She has appeared on the BBC, CNN, and PBS and in numerous television and radio interviews on NPR, BBC Persian, VOA Persian and other international outlets. Afkhami’s publications have been widely translated and distributed internationally, including Women in Exile; Faith and Freedom: Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World; In the Eye of the Storm: Women and the Law in Iran; Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women; Leading to Action: A Political Participation Handbook for Women; Beyond Equality: A Manual for Human Rights Defenders; and Victories Over Violence: Ensuring Safety for Women and Girls, among others.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Iranian Women's Movement: A Conversation with Mehrangiz Kar 1:30:02

il y a 5 years1:30:02

1:30:02

Professor Mehrangiz Kar, a human rights lawyer from Iran, is an internationally recognized writer, speaker and activist who advocates for the defense of women’s and human rights in Iran and throughout the Islamic world. A common theme in her work is the tension between Iranian law and the core principles of human rights and human dignity. She will discuss the women’s rights movement in Iran with Dr. Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford. The conversation will be followed by a Q&A session with viewers. The event will be live-translated from Persian/Farsi to English. In 2000, Professor Kar and sixteen other Iranian journalists, activists and intellectuals attended a conference held at the Heinrich Böll Institute in Berlin entitled “Iran After the Elections,” where Professor Kar made remarks about the urgent need for constitutional reform. Upon her return to Iran, she was arrested, taken to Evin Prison, and leveled with various charges, from “acting against national security” to “spreading propaganda against the regime of the Islamic Republic.” On 13 January 2001, she was sentenced to four years imprisonment. Currently, she is the Senior Technical Advisor for Rule of Law at Siamak Pourzand Foundation. She was formerly a visiting scholar at Harvard University, Brown University, University of Cape Town, Wellesley College, California State University Northridge (CSUN) and the Brookings Institution. She practiced law in the Islamic Republic of Iran for 22 years and has published numerous books and articles on issues related to law, gender equality and democracy in Iran and abroad. Professor Kar has received several international awards for her human rights endeavors including the Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy, Ludovic-TrarieuxInternational Human Rights Prize, and the Human Rights First Award. Her books published in Iran related to this topic include: Women’s Participation in Politics: Obstacles and Possibilities (2001), Violence Against Women in Iran (2000), Legal Structure of the Family System in Iran (1999), and Elimination of Gender Discrimination: A Comparison of the Convention On Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and Iran’s Contemporary Laws (1999). Her book, Violence Against Women in Iran (2000), has become essential reading and a reference for research on violence against women in Iran. In recent years, she has also published a number of journal articles and book chapters in English. This event is part of the ongoing conversation on the women’s movement in Iran that has been a part of the Iranian Studies Program since its inception. Conversations with Simin Behbahani, Ziba Mir-Hossaini, Farzaneh Milani, Shahrnush Parsipur, Mahshid Amirshahy, Masih Alinejad, and Jila Baniyaghoob, are just a few of the many voices we have hosted over the years. This important subject will continue to be a part of our programming.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Saadi and Humanism 1:02:12

il y a 5 years1:02:12

1:02:12

Abbas Milani discusses his new book Saadi and Humanism (written with Maryam Mirzadeh, published by Zemestan Press in Iran). The book is in Persian/Farsi, the conversation was in English.

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Iran in the International System 1:06:19

il y a 5 years1:06:19

1:06:19

Heinz Gärtner and Mitra Shahmoradi discuss their recent book Iran in the International System: Iran between Great Powers and Great Ideas (Routledge, January 2020). They are joined by Abbas Milani who will speak about his chapter in the book. Drawing on Iran’s history and its relations with great powers and its regional neighbors, this book addresses the question of how much continuity and/or change there is in Iranian international relations since the Iranian revolution. The conversation will be in English. Iran has often been at the center of the political debate on both the Gulf region and the transatlantic relations. Following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Viennese nuclear agreement in May 2018 signed by the five permanent members of the UN-Security Council in 2015, the relationship between Iran and the world entered a new phase. With high expectations within Iran for improved relations with Europe, the authors of this book call for a new and innovative approach to be undertaken by the Iranian leadership towards the U.S. and Europe if Iran is to find a role for itself within regional and international structures.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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The Iranian Women's Movement: A Conversation with Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani 1:39:47

il y a 5 years1:39:47

1:39:47

Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, a member of a family long considered a pillar of the Islamic Republic of Iran, became a prisoner of conscience in that regime and is now a defender of equal rights for women—one of the many fascinating transformations in Iran in recent years. She discusses the evolution and future of the women’s rights movement in Iran. The conversation will be live-translated from Persian/Farsi to English. An active Iranian women’s rights activist, Ms. Rafsanjani was the founder and publisher of Zan—the first publication after the 1979 revolution dedicated to the cause of women—and is acclaimed for her role in preserving women’s athletics from the onslaught of conservative clergy. She earned a Master of Laws degree in international human rights from Birmingham City University. She also served as a member of the Iranian parliament from 1996 to 2000. This event is part of the ongoing conversation on the women’s movement in Iran that has been a part of the Iranian Studies Program since its inception. Conversations with Simin Behbahani, Ziba Mir-Hossaini, Farzaneh Milani, Shahrnush Parsipur, Mahshid Amirshahy, Masih Alinejad, and Jila Baniyaghoob, are just a few of the many voices we have hosted over the years. This important subject will continue to be a part of our programming.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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An Overview of the COVID-19 Situation: Lessons Learned from Iran 1:01:32

il y a 5 years1:01:32

1:01:32

April 22, 2020 Arash Alaei, Kamiar Alaei Discussion will include a brief overview of the current situation of the coronavirus in Iran followed by a health policy analysis of: • When, how and why the virus entered Iran; • Whether it was preventable or manageable at early stages; • What was the initial reaction of policymakers in Iran; • A briefing about the controversy among stakeholders on when and how to respond; • How and why the initial policies changed over time and the extent to which they were politically motivated. Kamiar Alaei, MD, DrPH and Arash Alaei, MD are global health policy experts who have been working in conservative social settings for two decades. They are the co-President of the Institute for International Health and Education working in several countries in the Middle East and Central Asia. They co-founded the first ‘Triangular Clinic’ for three target groups in Iran (drug users, HIV patients, and STD cases), documented by the World Health Organization as a ‘Best Practice Model’. In recognition of their work, Drs. Alaei were awarded: Jonathan Mann award for Global Health and Human Rights by the Global Health Council; World Health Organization/PAHO Award for Health and Human Rights; Inaugural Elizabeth Taylor Award sponsored by the International AIDS Society and amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research in recognition of efforts to advocate for human rights in the field of HIV; and the Heinz R. Pagels Award for human rights by the New York Academy of Sciences. They have authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles in prestigious publications including the Lancet Global Health and the British Medical Journal. They have been featured and interviewed by major academic journals such as Nature, Science and the Lancet. They recently co-authored "How Iran Completely and Utterly Botched Its Response to the Coronavirus" in the New York Times.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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From COVID19 to Cholera: Repeating Patterns in Iranian Pandemic History 37:45

il y a 5 years37:45

37:45

Dr. Amir Afkhami April 16, 2020 Why has the novel coronavirus (COVID19) pandemic been so widespread and deadly in Iran and what are the consequences of the outbreak? This lecture will attempt to answer these questions by presenting a timeline of the COVID19 outbreak in Iran and the historic and political determinants that shape Tehran’s public health policy against the pandemic. Amir A. Afkhami, MD, PhD, is an associate professor with joint appointments in psychiatry, global health, and history at the George Washington University. He is also the director of preclinical psychiatric education at the George Washington University School of Medicine. He is the author of A Modern Contagion: Imperialism and Public Health in Iran's Age of Cholera (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019). Previously, he served on the legislative staff of US Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and he led the U.S. State Department's Iraq Mental Health Initiative to rebuild Iraq’s mental health delivery capabilities.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Rereading the Ten Nights 1:20:27

il y a 5 years1:20:27

1:20:27

Dr. Mandana Zandian lectured at Stanford on March 5, 2020. In October 1977, the German-Iranian Cultural Association in Tehran hosted ten nights of literature reading sessions, organized by the Iranian Writers Association. This series of literature readings, performed by 60 writers, is considered as an early manifestation of a public expression of political protest against the Pahlavi regime. Rereading the Ten Nights is a collection of interviews with some of the writers who attended the event, 36 years later. Mandana Zandian is a graduate of Shahid Beheshti Medical School in 1997. She works at the Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and is currently engaged in research on aggressive types of advanced cancers. Dr. Zandian, also a published poet, author, and journalist, serves on the editorial board of the Rahavard quarterly journal and collaborates with Homa Sarshar in her weekly Radio Programs. A selection of Zandian’s love poems is translated into English by Professor Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak as An Eyeful of Earth, An Eyeful of Ocean, Los Angeles, 2014. Her books include: “Omid o Azadi” (Hope and Freedom), on the life and works of Iraj Gorgin, Los Angeles, 2012; “Baz-khani-e Dah-Shab” (The Ten-Nights Revisited), Los Angeles, 2014; and her latest book titled Ehsan Yar Shater: an Interview with Mandana Zandian, Los Angeles, 2016. Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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"Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic" by Narges Bajoghli 38:09

il y a 6 years38:09

38:09

Professor Narges Bajoghli discussed her recent book "Iran Reframed" at Stanford on February 20, 2020. “An inside look at what it means to be pro-regime in Iran, and the debates around the future of the Islamic Republic. More than half of Iran's citizens were not alive at the time of the 1979 Revolution. Now entering its fifth decade in power, the Iranian regime faces the paradox of any successful revolution: how to transmit the commitments of its political project to the next generation. New media ventures supported by the Islamic Republic attempt to win the hearts and minds of younger Iranians. Yet members of this new generation—whether dissidents or fundamentalists—are increasingly skeptical of these efforts. Iran Reframed offers unprecedented access to those who wield power in Iran as they debate and define the future of the Republic. Over ten years, Narges Bajoghli met with men in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Ansar Hezbollah, and Basij paramilitary organizations to investigate how their media producers developed strategies to court Iranian youth. Readers come to know these men—what the regime means to them and their anxieties about the future of their revolutionary project. Contestation over how to define the regime underlies all their efforts to communicate with the public. This book offers a multilayered story about what it means to be pro-regime in the Islamic Republic, challenging everything we think we know about Iran and revolution.” Narges Bajoghli is Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, and The Washington Post, and has appeared as a commentator on NPR, PBS, and the BBC. She is the director of the documentary The Skin That Burns, screened at The Hague, Hiroshima, Jaipur, and film festivals throughout the United States.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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"In the Presence of the Secret of Motherland" by Reza Farokhfal 1:09:40

il y a 6 years1:09:40

1:09:40

On October 15, 2019, Reza Farokhfal discussed his recent book "In the Presence of the Secret of Motherland" and Iran and "Iranianity" in Persian literature. Reza Farokhfal is a published writer in his home country of Iran. His fictional works as well as his works in literary theory and cultural studies have appeared in various literary periodicals and anthologies. His latest book, Of Neda’s Gaze, a collection of essays on Iranian literature and culture was released this year. He has taught Persian Language at McGill University (Canada), University of Wisconsin in Madison, and at Colorado University in Boulder. He is the author of the highly acclaimed book Persian: Here and Now, a course book in two volumes for Farsi (Persian) language which has been adopted by the Stanford University Persian language program amongst other prestigious academic institutions in the U.S. and abroad. In this monograph, he has offered a reading of the main trends in classic (canonical) and modern Persian literature demonstrating the deep indigenous roots of “Iranianity”—the Iranian national identity. He argues that “Iranianity” was not invented in the context of the so-called “colonial modernization” of a peripheral country. Rather, Iranian national identity existed as a remembrance in the Persian literary tradition long before the formation of the modern nation-state of Iran in the early twentieth century. In reading the Persian literary texts, Professor Farokhfal has applied a post-structural literary theoretical framework—inspired by Michail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, along with the writings of theorists such as Ernest Renan, Benedict Anderson and Étienne Balibar—to redefine Iran as a nation through history. Professor Farokhfal has offered a link to download his new book for free order to make it more widely available and avoid censorship by the Iranian government (see iranianstudies.stanford.edu for more information)…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Cooking in Iran: Regional Recipes and Kitchen Secrets 1:17:23

il y a 6 years1:17:23

1:17:23

Najmieh Batmanglij, hailed as “The Grande Dame of Iranian Cooking” by The Washington Post, has spent the past 40 years cooking, traveling, and adapting authentic Persian recipes to tastes and techniques in the West. Her celebrated cook books include Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey, and her most recent book Cooking in Iran: Regional Recipes and Kitchen Secrets. Najmieh is a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier and lives in Washington, DC, where she teaches Persian and Silk Road cooking, and consults with restaurants around the world. In this talk, Najmieh discusses her most recent cookbook, selected as one of the 19 best cookbooks of Autumn 2018 by The New York Times. Description of the book: “Najmieh takes us with her on an extraordinary culinary journey: from the daily fish market in Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf, where she and her host buy and cook a 14-pound grouper in a tamarind, cilantro, and garlic sauce, to the heart of historical Isfahan, in central Iran, where she prepares lamb necks in a yogurt, saffron, and candied orange peel sauce topped with caramelized barberries. Traveling north to the Caspian Sea, she introduces us to the authentic Gilaki version of slow-cooked duck in a pomegranate and walnut sauce, served over smoked rice; and the unique flavors of a duck-egg omelet with smoked eggplant and baby garlic. Lingering in the north, in tribal Kurdistan, she treats us to lamb-and-bulgur meatballs filled with caramelized onions and raisins in a saffron sauce. Dropping south, to Bandar Abbas on the coast, she teases our palate with rice cooked in date juice and served with spicy fish, while in Baluchistan she cooks spiced goat in a pit overnight and celebrates the age-old method of making bread in hot ashes.At every village and off-the-beaten-track community, Najmieh unearths traditional recipes and makes surprising new discoveries, giving us a glimpse along the way of the places where many of the ingredients for the recipes are grown. She treks through the fields and orchards of Iran, showing us saffron being picked in Khorasan and pomegranates in Yazd, dates harvested by the Persian Gulf, pistachios in Kerman, and tea and rice by the Caspian.”…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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"Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey" by Mikhal Dekel 1:27:36

il y a 6 years1:27:36

1:27:36

Mikhal Dekel discusses her most recent book, "Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey." Beginning in March 1942, Iran became a place of refuge to over one hundred thousand Polish citizens—Catholic but also Jewish—who joined other Jewish refugees already there. Professor Dekel, whose father was a child refugee in Tehran, will discuss the circumstances that brought him and others to Iran, the reception they received there, the arrival of Jewish aid organizations, and the mutual impact of refugees and host country on each other. Mikhal Dekel is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the City College and the CUNY Graduate Center and Director of CCNY’s Rifkind Center for Humanities and the Arts. She is the recipient of many awards—including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation and the Lady Davis Foundation—and is the author of three books: Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey (W. W. Norton 2019); Oedipus in Kishinev (Bialik Institute, 2014) and The Universal Jew (Northwestern UP, 2011). Her articles, translations, and blogs have appeared in many publications, including the Journal of Comparative Literature, English Literary History, Jewish Social Studies and Callaloo, among others.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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"Hafiz and His Contemporaries" by Dominic Parviz Brookshaw 1:35:46

il y a 6 years1:35:46

1:35:46

Dominic Parviz Brookshaw is Associate Professor of Persian Literature at the University of Oxford, and Senior Research Fellow in Persian at Wadham College, Oxford. From 2011-2013 he was Assistant Professor of Persian Literature and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. Professor Brookshaw currently serves on the Editorial Board of Middle Eastern Literatures and, for a decade (2004-2014), he served as Assistant Editor for Iranian Studies. He is a former member of both the Board of the International Society for Iranian Studies, and the Governing Council of the British Institute of Persian Studies. In this talk, Professor Brookshaw discusses his monograph, Hafiz and His Contemporaries: Poetry, Performance, and Patronage in Fourteenth-century Iran, published in February 2019 by Bloomsbury. About the talk: For more than eight centuries, Shiraz has been synonymous with fine Persian poetry. Dubbed the Abode of Knowledge and the Tower of Saints, Shiraz has often been read through a reductive pietistic lens by those who posit a Sufistic underpinning for its poetics, and who ignore (or actively seek to erase) the profane dimensions of the city’s vibrant literary culture. In the immediate post-Mongol period, panegyric odes written in praise of Shiraz and its rulers formed the backbone of the lyric poetry produced in the city, and served as vehicles for a chauvinistic Shirazi propaganda that targeted other major centers of Persian literary activity in the region, primarily Tabriz, Baghdad, and Isfahan. In his praise poetry infused as it is with the homonormative aesthetics of the Persian ghazal, Hafiz presents Shiraz not only as paradise on earth, but as an irresistible, all-captivating beloved. Hafiz promoted the idea of the cultural superiority of Shiraz through their insistent claim that the poetry produced within its urban fabric forms the standard that all Persian poets must strive for, whether they be players within the same literary network spanning Iran and Iraq, or poets active far beyond the old borders of the Ilkhanid realm.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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"All the Saffron We Carried with Us" by Naz Deravian 1:07:11

il y a 6 years1:07:11

1:07:11

Naz Deravian is a James Beard Award nominated author of Bottom of the Pot: Persian Recipes and Stories (Flatiron Books). She is the recipient of The IACP Julia Child First Book Award, presented by The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. She has been published in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, Saveur, O Magazine, and Montecristo Magazine. She has also been profiled in The New York Times and Bon Appetit magazine, among others. Ms. Deravian was born in Iran, she grew up in Canada and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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"The Art of Iranian Classical Music" by Parissa 1:23:41

il y a 6 years1:23:41

1:23:41

April 25, 2019 Speaker: Parissa Parissa, the grande dame of classical Persian music, led a discussion/workshop on the history, context, and purpose of Iranian classical music. Parissa is known for her extraordinary vocal ability and style. She is the most prominent and influential Iranian female classical singer of the past fifty years. Parissa studied the repertoire of radif and old tasnifs with Mahmoud Karimi and Abdollah Davami, two of the most celebrated masters of Persian vocal music. She worked for Iran's National Radio and Television Broadcasting and the Ministry of Culture for several years. After the 1979 revolution, she was no longer allowed to perform in public in Iran. Over the past 40 years, her international profile has expanded with performances at festivals and concerts around the world, as well as teaching in academic institutions. Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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"Iran: the Islamic Regime's Resilience under Pressure" by Amin Saikal 29:01

il y a 6 years29:01

29:01

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been in the eyes of the storm ever since its foundation four decades ago. Initially, some analysts could not have confidence in its durability, but it has endured many domestic and foreign policy challenges. Despite being at loggerheads with the United States and some of its regional allies for most of its life, it has remained defiant and resilient. However, in the era of President Donald Trump, who has withdrawn the US from the July 2015 multi-lateral nuclear agreement and has imposed the harshest sanctions ever, the Republic is in the grip of serious economic difficulties, with political implications. Yet, Trump's policy actions are unlikely to bring the Republic’s Islamic regime to its knees, just as sanctions could not cause the demise of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. However, the same cannot be said about the Iranian society, which is bearing the brunt of Trump’s actions. Amin Saikal AM, FASSA is University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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"A Modern Contagion: Cholera's Impact on Iranian History" by Amir Afkhami 48:16

il y a 6 years48:16

48:16

Amir A. Afkhami presents an overview of pandemic cholera’s seminal role in the emergence and development of modernity in Iran during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This includes details on cholera’s transformative impact on the country’s governance and perspectives on medicine, disease, and public health. It also sheds light on how cholera shaped Iran's globalization and diplomacy and how it triggered revolutionary events such as the Tobacco Protest and the Constitutional Revolution. His presentation challenges the long held historical assumptions on the universal role of safe water and sanitation in ending the recurrence and severity of cholera and shape our discussion around what Iran’s historical experience with cholera can teach us about contemporary public health questions. Amir A. Afkhami, MD, PhD, is an associate professor with joint appointments in psychiatry, global health, and history at the George Washington University. He is also the director of preclinical psychiatric education at the George Washington University School of Medicine. Afkhami's doctoral level education in both history and medicine has allowed him to take a multidisciplinary approach to historical scholarship and contemporary challenges in public health as an advisor to the U.S. Departments of State, Defense, and the U.S. Senate. He planned and led the U.S. State Department's Iraq Mental Health Initiative to rebuild Iraq’s mental health delivery capabilities. He also served on the legislative staff of US Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), where he helped with the development and passage of the Excellence in Mental Health Act. Prior to joining GWU, Afkhami was a lecturer in the global history of public health at Yale University.…

Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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Pooya Azadi: Moving Toward a New Equilibrium in Iran 1:03:27

il y a 6 years1:03:27