Stanford Iranian Studies Program

Christopher de Bellaigue was born in London in 1971 and was raised in the United Kingdom. In 1995 he graduated in Indian and Persian Studies from Cambridge University and started working as a journalist in India. Since then, he has written from the Middle East, Turkey and South Asia for, among others, the Economist, the New York Review of Books, the Financial Times, the New Yorker, the London Revi...

Sholeh Quinn is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Merced. She received her PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 1993. Her main area of research focuses on the history of Iran during the Safavid era (ca. 16th-early 18th centuries), with a special emphasis on historiography.

Niloofar Beyzaie is the daughter of the theater and film director Bahram Beyzaie and Monir Azam Raminfar. Leaving Iran in 1985 for political reasons, she studied German literature, theater, film and television studies, and education at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. In 1994 she founded the theater group "Daritsche", serving as director, playwright, and lighting and cos...

Jasmin Darznik, Washington University & Lee University Jasmin Darznik is the author of The Good Daughter: A Memoir of MyMother’s Life. A New York Times bestseller, the book has beentranslated into eight languages and was shortlisted for the 2012Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her writing has appeared inthe New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Dr. Darznik was born in Teh...

Touraj Daryaee is the Howard C. Baskerville Professor in the Historyof Iran and the Persianate World and the Associate Director of the SamuelJordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at the University of California, Irvine. His recent book is the Oxford History of Iran, Oxford. His last work was abook co-athored with Iraj Afshar called: Scholars and Humanists: The Letters of S.H. Taqizadeh and...

Sahar Delijani was born in Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran in 1983, the same year both her parents were arrested due to their political activism against the Islamic regime. In 1996, when she was 12 years old, her parents decided to move to Northern California to join her mother’s family. Delijani was registered in a middle school, starting from 7th grade. Her works have appeared in a wide range of lit...

Zakeri finished his Ph. D. studies in Near Eastern History at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City in 1987. The title of his Dissertation was Sasanian Soldiers in Early Muslim Society: the Origins of the 'Ayyaran and Futuwwa (an expanded revised version of this was published, Wiesbaden 1995). He taught medieval and Islamic history courses at the University of Utah (1984-1987). Working as a Resea...

MARY HEGLAND Mary Elaine Hegland is professor of anthropology at Santa Clara University. Her areas of focus include women and gender, political anthropology, Shia Islamic ritual and politics, resistance and revolution, social and cultural change, and the anthropology of personal philosophies and life histories. Hegland has conducted anthropological fieldwork in Iran, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Afgha...

The Psychology of Dictatorship Fathali Moghaddam is Professor, Department of Psychology, and Director of The Conflict Resolution Program, Department of Government, Georgetown University. He is the Editor of ‘Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology’ (American Psychological Association). He was educated from an early age in England, and worked for the United Nations and McGill University bef...

For the past seven years, we have been giving an annual award, named the Bita Prize for Persian Letters. The winners have been some of the most prominent Iranian writers, poets, vocalists, and playwrights of our time—from Simin Behbahani and Mohammad Reza Shajarian (the first the poet laureate of the people and the second the country's most beloved vocalist), to Bahram Beyzaie (the eminent film-ma...

DENA TAHERIANFAR For the past seven years, we have been giving an annual award, named the Bita Prize for Persian Letters. The winners have been some of the most prominent Iranian writers, poets, vocalists, and playwrights of our time—from Simin Behbahani and Mohammad Reza Shajarian (the first the poet laureate of the people and the second the country's most beloved vocalist), to Bahram Beyzaie (th...

Houchang Esfandiar Chehabi is a Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. He has also taught at Harvard University, UCLA, and the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Iranian Politics and Religions Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (1990); principal author of Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the last 500 years (2006)...

Charles Melville is Professor of Persian History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College. He has a BA (Hons.) in Arabic and Persian from Cambridge (1972), an MA in Islamic History (SOAS, 1973) and a PhD on the Historical seismicity of Iran (Cambridge, 1978). His main research interests are in the history and historiography of Iran in the Mongol to Safavid periods (14th-17th...

Dick Davis is Professor Emeritus of Persian at Ohio State University, where he was chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from 2002 to 2012. He has written scholarly works on both English and Persian literature, as well as eight volumes of his own poetry. He has been the recipient of numerous academic and literary awards, including the Ingram Merrill and Heinemann awards fo...

A brief historical overview of theatrical performances in prison, particularly in Iran. The presentation is based on an essay. You can contact the Iranian Studies Program for a copy of the essay after the event has occurred. Nasser Rahmaninejad, a foremost, celebrated Iranian artist started his career in theatre in 1959 Iran. In response to the authoritarian cultural policies and harsh censorship...

Massoud Behnoud, a prominent Iranian journalist and writer, was born on 27 July 1947 in Tehran. He started his work as a journalist in 1964. During his long career he worked as an investigating journalist for different publications and founded more than 20 newspapers and magazines, none of which are currently in publication. Between 1971-79 he was the chief editor of the most influential and popul...

Reza Zarghamee brings multiple perspectives and deep knowledge to his account of the life of Cyrus the Great. Born in London in 1978 to Iranian parents, Zarghamee grew up in Boston. His immersion in the ancient history of Iran started early: At the age of thirteen, he began studying Old Persian cuneiform at the urging of Professor Richard Frye, a founder of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at...

A lecture followed by the screening of Maryam Khakipour's film, "Siah Bâzi." Guests: Nasser Rahmaninejad and Maryam Khakipour Nasser Rahmaninejad, a foremost, celebrated Iranian artist started his career in theatre in 1959 Iran. In response to the authoritarian cultural policies and harsh censorship of the Shah’s regime, he founded his alternative, independent theatre group, Mehr in 1966. His grou...

Abolala Soudavar completed his university education at the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris (1963-67), Stanford University (1967-68) and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Pratiques, Paris (1980-81). As a businessman he was involved in Iran from 1969 to 1982, when he moved to the USA and established Mirak Inc. He was Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Tehran University from 1970 to 1977. He is/was a member...

Mohsen Namjoo is an Iranian artist, songwriter, singer, music scholar and setar (traditional Persian lute) player based in California. Born in 1976 in Torbat-e Jam, Iran, Namjoo began his musical training at the age of twelve, studying under Nasrollah Nasehpoor until the age of eighteen. In 1994 Namjoo began to study Theater and Music at the University of Tehran, where he was trained under Alireza...

Arash Khazeni earned a Ph. D. in history from Yale University and teaches Middle Eastern and Eurasian history at Pomona College. His research is focused on the imperial and environmental histories of the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. His publications include Sky Blue Stone: The Turquoise Trade in World History (Berkeley: University of Cal...

Aida Moradi Ahani was born in Bandaranzali, Iran, in 1983. She now lives and works in Tehran. She graduated in electrical engineering from Azad University (Tehran, Iran- 2007). Since 2005 she has been active as an essayist, editor and writer. Her first collection of short stories, The Pin on Cat's Tail, was published in 2011 (Cheshmeh publishers, Tehran). Her début novel, Golfing on the Gunpowder...

Salar Abdoh was born in Iran, and splits his time between Tehran and New York City, where he codirects the Creative Writing MFA Program at the City College of New York. He is the author of The Poet Game and Opium. His essays and short stories have appeared in various publications, including the New York Times, BOMB, Callaloo, Guernica, and on the BBC. He is the recipient of the NYFA Prize and the...

Sasha Polakow-Suransky is an Editor for International Opinion at the New York Times Op-Ed page, based at the International New York Times office in London. He is responsible for assigning pieces on foreign policy, national security and international affairs. Before moving to the New York Times in early 2011, he was a senior editor at Foreign Affairs from 2007 - 2011. Mr. Polakow-Suransky’s article...

Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, author of The Woman Who Read Too Much. "A gripping tale of a pioneering woman in nineteenth century Iran, told from the street level up, that is universally relevant to our times." Bahiyyih Nakhjavani grew up in Uganda, was educated in the United Kingdom and the United States, and now lives in France where she teaches. She is the author of The Saddlebag and Paper as well as no...