Stanford Iranian Studies Program

Iran's increasing population has posed significant challenges to agriculture in ensuring food security. As a major agricultural producer in the Middle East, Iran has long pursued the goal of food self-sufficiency. However, the viability of this ambitious objective remains uncertain and widely debated. This conversation between Dr. Kaveh Madani and Dr. Mohsen B. Mesgaran on May 1, 2025 at Stanford...

April 29, 2025 از من گفتن بود: کاش خاموشی بود؛ روزگارِ همهمه و هیاهوست. سکوت، گوهرِ کمیاب و حتی نایابی‌ست. اهلِ زبان، نااهل شده‌اند، وگرنه زبان فارسی در بهترین وقتِ خود است. از کلامِ کهن تا روزمره را می‌توان کنار هم کاشت؛ زیبا، رَسا و گویا، فارغ از هیچ توضیح و شرحی، می‌بالد، بار می‌گیرد و بار می‌دهد. کاش می‌شد دل‌ْدرست نشست و فقط گفت و نوشت. مجالِ ما—درست‌تر بگویم، مجالِ من—تنگ و تُرُش بود. از من...

April 18, 2025 Discussion with the writers and directors of the Academy Award winning film “In the Shadow of the Cypress,” Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani. The film won the 2025 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. “A former captain, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, lives with his daughter in a humble house located by the sea. Together, they live an isolated life and have to confro...

Completed in 1938, the Trans-Iranian Railway connected Tehran to Iran's two major bodies of water: the Caspian Sea in the north and the Persian Gulf in the south. Iran's first national railway, it produced and disrupted various kinds of movement—voluntary and forced, intended and unintended, on different scales and in different directions—among Iranian diplomats, tribesmen, migrant laborers, techn...

March 6, 2025 A half-day conference celebrating important archival collections at Stanford University created by or about Iranian women. Scholars explored the intricacies of archival creation, the vital role these collections play in preserving the modern history of Iranian women, and the pressing need for continued archival research and scholarship in this area. Farzaneh Milani is Raymond J. Nels...

March 6, 2025 A half-day conference celebrating important archival collections at Stanford University created by or about Iranian women. Scholars explored the intricacies of archival creation, the vital role these collections play in preserving the modern history of Iranian women, and the pressing need for continued archival research and scholarship in this area. Kioumars Ghereghlou is the Curator...

February 13, 2025 This talk debunks the myth that, since alcohol is forbidden in Islam, “good” Muslims do not drink. It argues that, rather than extraneous to Islam, alcohol is integral to the faith, present through its very presumed absence. It presents traditional Islam, heir to a variegated Byzantine-Christian and Persian-Zoroastrian vinous tradition, not as the pettifogging creed that it appea...

For Iranian musicians, intercultural collaborations serve as a means to break free from isolation and connect with the wider world. This became particularly important in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution, which led to a significant decline in diplomatic relations between Iran and Western and many Arab countries. As Iranian society became more isolated, there arose a growing need to esta...

The second annual Christine Mona Khademi lecture with Dr. Nikta Fakhri was held January 30, 2025. Living systems are in constant motion, from the inner workings of our cells to the synchronized movements of bird flocks. What sets these systems apart is that they are powered by tiny, energy-consuming components that generate their own movement and forces. In this talk, I’ll uncover the hidden rules...

Over the course of late antiquity, many Jews lived in the Sasanian Empire, a Persian and Zoroastrian power that rivaled the Romans to their west in size and strength. Among these Jews were a community of rabbis who are featured in, and were responsible for, the Babylonian Talmud, one of the most influential texts in Jewish history. How did life under the Sasanian Empire affect Jews, the rabbis, an...

A talk by the fourth recipient of the Zahedi Family Fellowship, Dr. Hussein Banai. In this talk, Dr. Hussein Banai focuses on the procurement of late-Pahlavi Iran’s credibility, and Mohammadreza Shah’s legitimacy, in its diplomatic outreach toward the great powers, especially in the United States. It does so by drawing on official documents, personal notes and correspondence between top-level offi...

November 21, 2024 The space between stars is a magnetic soup of electrons, atoms, molecules, ions, and dust grains, known as the interstellar medium (ISM). It is this material that ultimately condenses to form stars, planets, and life. The densest and coldest part of the ISM are the birthplace of stars. However, the exact processes governing star formation within galaxies remain one of astrophysic...

The space between stars is a magnetic soup of electrons, atoms, molecules, ions, and dust grains, known as the interstellar medium (ISM). It is this material that ultimately condenses to form stars, planets, and life. The densest and coldest part of the ISM are the birthplace of stars. However, the exact processes governing star formation within galaxies remain one of astrophysics' most compelling...

Join us for a lecture by Dr. Farshad Sonboldel, drawn from his recent book "The Rebellion of Forms in Modern Persian Poetry" (Bloomsbury, 2024). During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, shifts in poetic styles and themes emerged, diverging from the ideals of the Literary Return Movement. Some poets of this era sought to engage with contemporary issues, notably the socio-political turmoil of...

A virtual conversation with Dr. Abbas Milani and Dr. Alina Utrata about the book "An Encounter with Dylan Thomas" by Ebrahim Golestan. Published by Mage Publishers in 2022, the book is edited and translated by Dr. Abbas Milani, and includes material found in the new Ebrahim Golestan archive at Stanford University. This event was hosted on September 26, 2024. About the book: Abadan, 1951. Iran and...

Professor Saeed Talajooy discusses the evolution of female protagonists in Bahram Beyzaie’s “Puppet Trilogy," “The Snake King” (1966), and “Ballad of Tārā" (1978-9). Ballad of Tārā, the second film in Professor Beyzaie's village trilogy, is focused on negotiating a collective identity that is cognizant of the past but has transcended the obsessions with glorifying or dismissing the past and its he...

The inaugural "Christine Mona Khademi lecture" with Dr. Maryam Shanechi organized on May 16, 2024. A major challenge in engineering and neuroscience is to model, decode, and control the activity of large populations of neurons that underlie our brain’s dysfunctions. Dr. Maryam Shanechi presents her work at the interface of AI, control theory, and neuroscience to develop closed-loop brain-machine i...

The 14th Bita Prize for Persian Arts celebrating acclaimed Iranian musician Shahram Nazeri was organized on May 10, 2024. Shahram Nazeri was born on August 22, 1949, in Kermanshah, Iran. His was a family steeped in art and culture. Though his father was a capable vocalist, it was his mother who first recognized and nurtured her son's talents and became his first music teacher. Nazeri gave his firs...

Chef Nasim Alikhani discusses how, even 35 years after leaving Iran for New York, she constantly looks for ways to connect back to her homeland, her culture, and the home she has left behind. In this talk she elaborates on her journey to opening her restaurant Sofreh and the ways in which it has empowered her to express herself, her culture, and what home means to her. Nasim Alikhani was born and...

Dr. Mahasti Afshar presents her recent translation of "Lament for Siavash" (Mage Publishers, 2024), the English translation of "Sūg-e Siavash" by Shahrokh Meskoob, originally published in Persian in 1971. The book is an exegesis of the story of the death of Siavash and his resurrection as Kay Khosrow in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, and its variant treatment across Iranian mythology, epic, religious, and...

Dr. Ali Ansari examines the arguments about the strength and stability of the Islamic Republic and argues that it is more fragile than many people believe. His talk assess the causes of this fragility and provides some trajectories for development going forward. Ali Ansari is Professor of Iranian History and Founding Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews; Se...

Dr. Farzaneh Milani discusses the semiotics of the rainbow in Iranian literature as it reflects the societal struggles for freedom and women's rights in present day Iran. “In the name of the Rainbow Goddess,” said the nine-year-old Kian Pirfallak before launching his hand-made toy boat. The budding poet who wanted to become a robotic engineer was shot dead on November 16, 2022, during the Woman, L...

The transition from Qajar rule in Iran to that of rule by the Pahlavi dynasty set in motion a number of shifts in the political, social, and cultural realms. Focusing on masculinity in Iran, Dr. Sivan Balslev discussed her book, "Iranian Masculinities: Gender and Sexuality in Late Qajar and Early Pahlavi Iran," which interweaves ideas and perceptions, laws, political movements, and men's practices...

Professor Domenico Ingenito discusses his new book من از نهایت شب حرف می‌زنم / Io parlo dai confini della notte / I Speak from the Edges of the Night (Bompiani 2023, 800 pp.) offering a critical edition and Italian translation of Forugh Farrokhzad’s entire poetic production. Forugh Farrokhzad (1934-1967) is the first female Iranian poet who playfully renegotiated the formal rules and dominant imag...

What went awry with Iran and America? Based on Dr. Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet's book, "Heroes to Hostages: America and Iran, 1800-1988", this lecture pays attention to Iran’s Third World networks as it navigated the Cold War. It focuses attention on race relations and gender concerns in its coverage of diplomacy and reexamines the causes of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet is Walter...