Parse: An Exploration of Critical Topics in Iranian Studies

Join host, Yasamin Jameh, on how Persian literature and Zoroastrianism influenced the preeminent 19th century American poet and philospher, Ralph Waldo Emerson.   The 40th episode of Parse is an excerpt of a presentation given by Dr. Pegah Shahbaz on how Persian literature and Zoroastrianism influenced Ralph Waldo Emerson’s philosophy of Transcendentalism, a highly popular movement in early 19th c...

Join host, Yasamin Jameh, in learning about the Mazadakite Uprising of the late 5th century and early 6th century AD in the Sassanian Empire.  The 39th episode of Parse is an excerpt of a presentation given by Parvaneh Pourshariati in the Zoroastrian Studies Symposium in honour of Ervard Dr. Jehan Bagli which took place at U of T on September 9th, 2023. Professor Pourshariati expounds on her resea...

Join host, Yasamin Jameh, in learning about slavery in the Bactria, an ancient Iranian civilization in Central Asia centred in areas that comprise most of modern-day Afghanistan, parts of Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.  The 38th episode of Parse is an excerpt of a presentation given by Said Reza Huseini which addresses Bactrian documents and their importance for understanding the socio-political hist...

Join host, Yasamin Jameh, in learning about Claudia Yaghoobi’s new book, Transnational Culture in the Iranian Armenian Diaspora (2023).   The 37th episode of Parse is an excerpt from Professor Claudia Yaghoobi’s book launch at the Institute, titled Transnational Culture in the Iranian Armenian Diaspora . Her book studies the ways diasporic Iranian Armenian authors and artists negotiate their ident...

Join host, Yasamin Jameh, in learning about the work of Craig Hillman, one of the foremost American scholars of Persian poetry and literary history.   The 36th episode of Parse is an excerpt from a lecture given by Michael Craig Hillman where does a close reading of Forugh Farrokhzad’s poems and analyzes them through the lens of American Formalism.    Hillman is a professor of Persian Studies at t...

Join host, Yasamin, in exploring and analyzing the modernist features of Forugh Farrokhzad's poetry, particularly the topic of female madness. The 35th episode of Parse is an excerpt from a lecture given by Leila Rahimi Bahmany on Iranian poet, Forough Farrokhzad’s poetics of modernity. It will delineate the characteristic features of literary modernity that place Farrokhzad among the modernis...

Join host, Yasamin Jameh, in learning about the important role of Iraq's National Archives in helping Iraqis to rebuild and heal from their tumultuous recent history.  The 34th episode of Parse is an excerpt from a discussion between Saad Eskander and Sara Farhan. This interview is part of a more extensive seminar organized by the Iranian Studies Institute at U of T titled “The Looting and Rep...

Join host, Yasamin Jameh, in learning about the important role of Iraq's National Archives in helping Iraqis to rebuild and heal from their tumultuous recent history. The 33rd episode of Parse is an excerpt from a lecture given by Thabit AJ Abdullah on the struggle to save the Iraq Archives from destruction in the many wars and conflicts that Iraq has experienced in the past decades. Abdullah’...

In this episode, join host Yasamin Jameh, in learning about the Bamiyan Papers which contain some of the oldest writings in New Persian ever recorded.   The 32nd episode of Parse is an excerpt from a lecture given by Arezou Azad on the Bamiyan Papers, a series of unpublished documents from the Bamiyan area in central Afghanistan made publicly available only in the last decade. Dr. Azad’s team at t...

In the 31st episode of Parse , join host, Yasamin Jameh, in exploring the little-known role of Germany in Iran's internal and international affairs in the first half of the twentieth century.   This episode is an excerpt from a presentation given by Dr. Jennifer Jenkins on the enormous archive on Iran in the German Foreign Office in Berlin. Jenkin’s research into this little-known archive reve...

In this episode, join host, Yasamin Jameh, in deciphering ancient notions of joy and happiness in the Zoroastrian traditions of Iran and India.   Welcome to the Season 3 finale of Parse! The 30th of Parse is an excerpt from a talk given by Dr. Jamsheed K. Choksy on Happiness in the Zoroastrian Traditions of Iran and India.     Choksy is a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Inner Asian and...

In this episode, join host Yasamin Jameh, in uncovering the dozens of anthologies featuring female Persian poets that appeared in the 19th and early 20th century in Iran and Northern India. These anthologies shed much-needed light on the role of women in the male-dominated field of Persian poetry.   The 29th episode of Parse is an excerpt from a lecture given by Sunil Sharma on almost a dozen anth...

In this episode, join host, Yasamin, in exploring “Sacred Defense Cinema”, a niche genre in Iranian cinema which deals with topics related to the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).   The 28th of Parse is a snippet of a talk given by Niki Akhavan on the large body of popular and officially supported Iranian cinematic works centered on the Iran-Iraq war or what is otherwise known as “Sacred Defense Cinema”....

In this episode, join host, Yasamin Jameh, in exploring the representation of non-Persian Iranian languages in Iranian Cinema.   The 27th episode of Parse is an excerpt on a talk given by Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad titled “Multilinguality and Iranian Cinema” where delves into the representation of non-Persian languages in Iranian movies and how these portrayals of “otherness” subvert the mask of lingui...

In this episode, join host, Yasamin Jameh, in exploring how Iranian filmmakers use their culture's profound heritage in the field of hermeneutics to incorporate allegory in their cinematic works. The 26th of Parse is a snippet of a talk given by Michelle Langford on the importance of allegory in many Iranian films, and how its use has become an indispensable tool for Iranian filmmakers to expr...

In this episode, join host Yasamin Jameh, in unearthing the history of the Indo-European language family and how it emerged as a language category in the onset of British imperial domination of India during the 18th century. Furthermore, learn about the latest research taking place in the field of Iranian linguistics today.   The 25th episode of Parse is an excerpt of a talk given by Dr. Simin Kar...

In this episode, join host Yasamin Jameh, in exploring the latest research on ancient Zoroastrian rituals contained in the Avesta. The 24th episode of Parse is an excerpt from a talk given by Dr. Alberto Cantera on the Zoroastrian rituals contained in the Avesta, the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism. He focuses on the best-known ritual still performed by Zoroastrian communit...

The 23rd episode of Parse is an excerpt from a talk given by Mona Tajali on her new book , Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table . Her book explores how religious and cultural norms, attitudes, institutional structures, and voter behaviour affect the representation of women and the quality of democracy in Muslim contexts, with a comparative focus on Ira...

In this episode, join host Yasamin Jameh, in exploring the topic of Iranian Masculinities at the turn of the 20th century when Iran was experiencing tumultuous social, political, and economic transformations which destabilized long-held traditional power structures and cultural mores. The 22nd episode of Parse is an excerpt from a presentation given by Dr. Sivan Balslev on her 2019 book, Iranian M...

Welcome back to Parse! Thank you for tuning in to listen to the premiere of our third season! In this episode, join host Yasamin Jameh, in uncovering the role of the Zoroastrian laity in preserving their ancient sacred texts like the Avesta despite intense adversity and persecution. The 21st episode of Parse is an excerpt from a presentation given by Dr. Almut Hintze on the complex process of tran...

Welcome to the Season 2 finale of Parse ! The 20th of Parse is an excerpt from a talk given by Farangis Ghaderi where she speaks on the rich, ancient, and varied tradition of Kurdish poetry, which has unfortunately been portrayed as a genre dominated by male poets when in reality many Kurdish women have equally contributed to developing and preserving it despite many hurdles Kurdish people have ha...

The 19th episode of Parse is a lecture given by Pegah Shahbaz where she speaks about the extensive cultural and literary contribution of the princesses of the Mughal Empire, a vast Persianate Empire that ruled much of the Indian subcontinent from the 16th century till the mid-19th centuries. Common misconceptions about Mughal princesses are that they lived idle lives in the Zenana, the women’s qua...

The 18th episode of Parse is an excerpt from a lecture given by Dominic Parviz Brookshaw where he explores the little-known involvement of women poets in the trajectory of the neoclassical Bazgasht-i adabi (“literary return movement”) in early Qajar Iran. Overlooked in the scholarship or dismissed as marginal, the evidence presented in this lecture will show that, that women poets were very active...

The 17th episode of Parse is a lecture given by Fatemeh Shams where she explores the problematic categorization and labelling of poetry written by Iranian women in the last several centuries of the history of Iranian literature.   Fatemeh Shams is a specialist in Persian literature. She earned her Ph. D. in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford, Wadham College. Currently, she is an assist...

The 16th episode of Parse is an excerpt from a lecture given by Zuzanna Olszewska where she explores the poetry produced by Afghan women poets. She contends that Afghan women poets have benefited from educational opportunities and improved access to the public sphere in their countries of exile (like in neighbouring Iran and Pakistan, as well as Western countries) and in post-Taliban Afghanistan i...