Stanford Iranian Studies Program

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...

Soli Shahvar was born in Iran and received his MA in Middle Eastern and African History and his BA in Political Science from Tel Aviv University. He then went on to receive his doctorate at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He is a current Director at the Ezri Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Haifa. He has published many works, inc...

Nazila Fathi is a journalist, analyst, and media commentator on Iran. She reported out of Iran for nearly two decades until 2009. During this time, she authored over 2,000 articles for the New York Times. Sue also wrote for the Time Magazine, Agence France Press, and the Times and has been a guest speaker on CNN, BBC, CBC, and NPR. She received her Masters of Arts from University of Toronto in Pol...

Shahriar Mandanipour (Mondanipour), one of the most accomplished writers of contemporary Iranian literature, has held fellowships at Brown University, Harvard University, Boston College, and at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, and he has been a visiting professorship at Brown University, where he taught courses in Persian literature and cinema. His honors include the Mehregan Award for the best...

Ms. Sepideh Mohammadian, an accomplished Iranian, lawyer, writer and public intellectual. Her works of fiction and her monographs, mostly on issues dealing with women, offer a fascinating, innovative and daring new look at the question of women, their abuse and their defiance, in Iranian society. She will be giving a talk for us on the subject of "Women In Contemporary Literature of Iran: Seeking...

Pouya Afshar is an alumnus from the California Institute of Arts Character Animation department and is a graduate of University of California Los Angeles Graduate Department of Film and Television focusing in Animation and Digital Media. He has exhibited his work as an animator and visual artist throughout Los Angeles and United States at renowned locations such as Harold M. Williams Auditorium at...

Maryam Kamali is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. She focuses on the social history and historiography of the Middle East and Central Asia and currently teaches courses on the History of the Middle East and Women in the Islamic Middle East at Harvard.

Parinoush Saniee is an Iranian born writer, trained as a psychologist but has garnered an international reputation as a writer of fiction that focuses on the plight of Iranian women. Her work is especially intriguing because she combines her experience as a psychologist with her talent as a writer of fiction. Her books include My Share, The Father of the Other One, and Those Who Left and Those Who...

Does morality come from God, as many religions believe, offering a foundation of theocracy, or could there be biological explanations that have more to do with evolution than Divine design? In this lecture, De Waal will discuss the sense of fairness in animals and will review expressions of empathy in animals. Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal is a Dutch/American biologist and primatologist known for his wo...

Amir Ahmadi Arian is an Iranian writer and translator. He has published a collection of stories, Fragments of a Crime in 2005, and his novel, The Cogwheels, published in 2009, was shortlisted for Golshiri award. His translation work includes novels by Paul Auster, Cormac Mccarthy, E.L. Doctorow, and P.D James into Persian.

The son of an American father and Iranian mother, Cyrus M. Copeland’s new book, Off the Radar, is a memoir about his father accused of being a CIA agent by the Islamic Republic and his mother’s attempt to defend him in military court.

Massoud Behnoud is an Iranian journalist and writer and lifelong proponent of freedom of speech and press. He has founded newspapers and magazines and also authored 17 books on contemporary Iranian history, compilations of short essays and stories, and biographical historical novels. He has been a journalist for the BBC World services since 1992.

Majid Roshangar, editor in chief of the Persian Book Review since 1965, had a long and distinguished career as a publisher, editor, and author in Iran. He also holds an MA in Government from the University of New South Wales, Australia and served in Iran’s Foreign Service in the 1960s and 1970s.

Dr. Kamran Talattof is professor of Persian of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. He has published widely on issues of gender, sexuality, ideology, culture, and language pedagogy. His lecture will provide textual and discursive analyses of Iranian women's bestselling novels of the last two decades, placing them in the context within which they were published and read to reveal what...

Dr. Houchang Chehabi is a Professor of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. His lecture discusses the close relationship Iran and South Africa have had since the 1970s and the evolution of this relationship, touching on politics, economics, and religion. Co-sponsored by the Stanford Center for African Studies.

Nima Naghibi is Chair and Associate Professor of English at Ryerson University in Toronto. Her research is in the areas of postcolonial and diaspora studies, and life narratives with particular attention to questions of human rights and social justice. She is the author of the books Women Write Iran: Nostalgia and Human Rights from the Diaspora (Minnesota Press, 2016) and Rethinking Global Sisterh...

Jahan Ramazani is University Professor and Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English at the University of Virginia. He is currently writing a book on poetry in a global age. This talk on poetry, art, and East-West translation ranges from ancient Iran to medieval Byzantium and the Abbasid era to modern Iran and Ireland. The lecture is in three parts. The first looks at the Persian artistic influences v...

Chahla Chafiq is an author, researcher, and human rights activist. Chahla's writings both in Persian and French include essays, research articles, short stories, and novels. She discusses her newest book, Ask the Mirror (2015), and reflects on literature and exile. Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.