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.

Britain and the Abdication of Reza Shah with Shaul Bakhash

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.

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

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.

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

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).

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

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).

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

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.

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

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.

Reza Shah's Exile in Mauritius with Houchang Chehabi

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.

The Legacy Of Mohammad Mosaddegh With Nicolas Gorjestani

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

SGS Summer Film Festival: Cafe Transit

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.

A Discussion with Mohsen Yalfani

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 is 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.

Parliamentary Politics and Iran-US Relations During the Cold War

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.

Mohammad Reza Shajarian Records Singing with Hagia Sophia Acoustics

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.

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

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.

Book Talk: Ahmad Shamlou, Behind the Mirror

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 was published in 2013 (Negah, Tehran). She has collaborated with another artist to turn one of her short stories into a film script. Another of her stories has been selected and translated into English for Tehran Noir, a collection of Iranian short stories to be published this fall by Akashic Books, New York.

"Recent Trends in Iranian Fiction Writing" by Aida Moradi Ahani

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-17thcenturies), and the illustration of Persian manuscripts. Recent publications include:

“The illustration of history in Safavid manuscript painting”, in Colin P. Mitchell (ed.) New Perspectives on Safavid Iran: Empire and Society, London 2011; “The itineraries of Shahrukh b. Timur (1405-47)”, in D. Durand-Guédy (ed.) Turko-Mongol Rulers, Cities and City Life, Leiden, 2013, and “The Royal image in Mongol Iran”, in Lynette Mitchell & Charles Melville (eds), Every Inch a King: Comparative studies on kings and kingship in the ancient and medieval worlds, Leiden, 2013. He is currently working on the illustration of mediaeval Persian history.

Dr Firuza Melville is a graduate (BA, MA hons.) of the Iranian Philology Department, Faculty of Oriental Studies, St Petersburg University, where she received her PhD in Iranian philology, Art and Islamic Studies in 1989. She was an Associate Professor at the University of St Petersburg when she joined the Cambridge Shahnama Project after a term at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) and a term at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) as a Fulbright Professor. From September 2005 until September 2010 she was Lecturer in Persian Literature at the University of Oxford and Fellow and Keeper of the Firdousi Library of Wadham College. From October 2010 she was the Iran Heritage Foundation Research Associate of the Cambridge Shahnama Project. Since September 2013 she is the Head of the Shahnama Centre for Persian Studies, University of Cambridge.

Her main research interests include Classical Persian literature, Medieval and contemporary Persian art, Persian codicology, Travelogue literature of the Qajar period, Persian literary classics in contemporary art and Russian cultural Orientalism in Iran, Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Shahnama Illustrated Manuscripts in the Digital Age & The Idea of the Shahnama in Contemporary Arts

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 costume designer.

Central themes of Niloofar Beyzaie’s theatrical works are women, "the suffering of individuals among the crowd", and "being a stranger either one’s own, or a foreign, society". She has written extensively on Iran’s political and social situation, particularly the plight of contemporary women. In 2005, she was recognized for her work as an exemplary theatrical director, and awarded the Persian "World Academy of Art, Literature and Media" in Budapest. In the same year, her play "Daughters of the Sun (Come, Dance with me)" was performed in Zurich by Maralam Theater, under direction of Peter Braschler. The revival of her play "No Man's Land" was performed in German in March 2009 in Karlsruhe, as part of the Cultural Perspectives of Women festival. Her latest play, "Face to Face at the Threshold of the Cold Season", centered on the Iranian historical figures Tahirih Qurratu'l-ayn and Forough Farokhzad, premiered in October 2011.

Hamid & Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies

"Iranian Theater in Exile, A Personal Odyssey" by Niloofar Beyzaie

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.

"Shah Isma'il in late Safavid Historiography: a Unique Treatise on Safavid Kingship" by Sholeh Quinn

Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iranian politics has conventionally been viewed as a polarized conflict between “secular” and “Islamic” ideologies. I argue that this view has masked the real battle, which has been between despotism and patriarchy, on the one hand, and democracy and feminism, on the other. The century-old struggle for democracy in Iran has been enmeshed in the dynamics of changing relations between sexuality, theology and politics. In this light I re-examine the course of the 2009 presidential elections and their aftermath.

Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini is a legal anthropologist, specializing in Islamic law, gender and development. She has a BA in Sociology from Tehran University (1974) and a PhD in Social Anthropology from University of Cambridge (1980). A Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Law, University of London, she has held numerous research fellowships and visiting professorships, including Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2004-5), and Hauser Global Law Visiting Professor at New York University (2002-8). She is a founding member of the Musawah Global Movement for Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family. Her publications include "Marriage on Trial: A study of Islamic Family Law in Iran and Morocco" (I.B. Tauris, 1993, 2002), "Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran" (Princeton University Press, 1999), "Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform" (with Richard Tapper; I.B. Tauris, 2006), and "Control and Sexuality: the Revival of Zina Laws in Muslim Contexts" (with Vanja Hamzic; Women Living Under Muslim Laws, 2010). She has also directed (with Kim Longinotto) two award-winning feature-length documentary films on contemporary issues in Iran: "Divorce Iranian Style" (1998) and "Runaway" (2001).

"Love, Rights, and Honor: Gender and Democracy in Iran" by Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini

Born and raised in Teheran, Iran, Farzaneh Milani attended French primary and secondary schools. She earned her BA in French Literature in 1970 from California State University at Hayward. Transferring to the University of California in Los Angeles, she completed her graduate studies in Comparative Literature in 1979. Her dissertation, Forugh Farrokhzad: A Feminist Perspective, was a critical study of the poetry of a pioneering Iranian woman poet. Milani taught Persian Language and Literature at UCLA for four years before coming to the University of Virginia in 1986. Past president of the Association of Middle Eastern Women Studies in America, Milani was the recipient of Alumni Teaching Award in 1998. She is the author of Words, Not Swords: Iranian women writers and the Freedom of Movement, Veils and Words: The Emerging Voice of Iranian Women Writers, and A Cup of Sin: Selected Poems of Simin Behbahani (edited and translated with Kaveh Safa). She has served as the guest editor of Nimeye Digar, IranNameh, and Journal of Iranian Studies. Milani has written some 100 articles, book chapters, introductions, and afterwards in Persian and English and lectured at over 150 colleges and universities nationally and internationally. Her poems have been published in Nimeye Digar, Par, Barrayand, Daneshju, Omid, and Avaye Portland. Milani teaches courses in Persian literature and cinema, Women and Islam, and cross-cultural studies of women.

"Words, Not Swords: Iranian Women and the Freedom Movement" by Farzaneh Milani

Farhad Daftary has been affiliated since 1988 to The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, where he is currently Co-Director and Head of the Department of Academic Research and Publications. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in the US from 1958-71, receiving his doctorate in 1971 from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a consulting-editor of Encyclopaedia Iranica, co-editor of Encyclopaedia Islamica, as well as general editor of “Ismaili Heritage Series” and “Ismaili Texts and Translations Series”. An authority on Ismaili history, Dr. Daftary is the author of more than 100 articles and numerous books, including The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines (1990; 2nd ed., 2007), The Assassin Legends (1994), A Short History of the Ismailis (1998) and (with Z. Hirji) The Ismailis: An Illustrated History (2008). Dr. Daftary's books have been translated into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu and numerous European languages. Map: http://campus-map.stanford.edu/index.cfm?ID=01-200 Closest parking is at the Oval. Look for Lasuen Mall (located to your left, if facing Memorial Church).

"The Ismailis of the Iranian World: History and Intellectual Contributions" by Farhad Daftary

Nima Mina is a member of academic staff at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies in the field of Persian and Comparative Literature. He received his academic training in general linguistics and Medieval Studies at the University of Marburg, Germany and in Comparative Literature and Music at the Universite de Montreal in Quebec. Recently, he has authored and edited books on the history of literary Orientalism in 19th and 20th century Germanic literatures (Iudicium-Verlag, Munich 2006) and Goethe's sources for the West-oestlicher Divan (Grazer Morgenlaendische Studien 2007.

"The Early German Poetry of Fereydoun Farrokhzad" by Nima Mina

Ali Akbar Moradi is an acclaimed Iranian musician. He is a master tanbour (Persian lute) player and expert in the history and form of the instrument. He began playing the tanbour at the age of seven and learned not only the music but the Kurdish maqam repertoire. He has won awards, recorded several albums, and performed in Europe, the United States, and Canada with singers like Shahram Nazeri and at the Royal Festival Hall in London. In addition to teaching the tanbour in Tehran and his hometown of Kermanshah, Ali Akbar is a dedicated scholar of the tanbour and continues to develop the legacy of the instrument and the regional Kurdish music.

"The History And Culture Of The Tanbour" by Ali Akbar Moradi

Professor Bahram Beyzaie discusses his newest play "Crossroads" at Stanford University on April 23, 2018. Learn more about "Crossroads" here: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/events/bahram-beyzaie-discusses-crossroads-play

Bahram Beyzaie Discusses "Crossroads"

Hossein Omoumi is a scholar and musician from Isfahan, Iran. He currently teaches at UC Irvine. A new documentary about his life, made by Hesam Abedimi, and innovative teaching style will also be screened (in Farsi with English subtitles). After, Hossein will discuss and demonstrate the structure of classical Persian music by singing and playing the Ney, with vocals from Jessika Kenney, santur accompaniment from Faraz Minooie, and Sina Dehghani playing the tombak.

"From Isfahan To Irvine" by Hossein Omoumi

We humans are a puzzling species.  No other animal comes close to our capacity for violently harming each other; yet at the same time, no other comes close to our capacity for cooperation, altruism, or compassion.  Most challengingly, the same motoric behavior can count as appalling or noble, depending on the context.  This lecture considers the biology of our context-dependent best and worst behaviors.  Crucially, true understanding requires a multi-disciplinary approach, as one must consider everything from neurobiological events over the course of seconds to evolutionary ones over the course of millions of years. 
 
Robert Sapolsky is an extremely talented speaker and teacher whose course at Stanford University is one of the most popular classes on campus. He is the author of several works of nonfiction, including A Primate's Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, and his most recent book this year Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. He is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation genius award. Image credit: L.A. Cicero

Robert Sapolsky - The Biology Of Humans At Our Best And Worst

Workshop with renowned Iranian film director Bahram Beyzaie at Stanford University, January-March 2013.

Sponsored by the Stanford Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, and the Bita Daryabari Endowment in Persian Letters.

The five series workshop based on the following topics: 2/21:  THE MEANING OF SHAHNAMEH AS A SOCIAL WORK2/28:  NON WRITTEN MYTHS OF PRE-SHAHNAMEH PERIOD 3/7: THE CREATION OF MANKIND AND AFTER3/14: ANALYTIC VIEW OF THE LEGEND OF ROSTAM AND SOHRAB 3/16: IRANIAN MYTHS IN TRADITIONAL SPECTACLES

Bahram Beyzaie is one of the most talented, internationally acclaimed artists, scholars and public intellectuals of his generation in Iran. He has written more than thirty-five plays, and fifty screenplays. Though a film-maker for over forty years, and recognized as one of the masters of Iran’s much-celebrated new-wave of cinema, he has been allowed to make only ten feature films and four short films.

But Beyzaie is not just an artist but also a scholar. His pioneering work on the history of Iranian theater remains, some forty-years after its publication, the most authoritative source on the subject. His many monographs and essays have delved into a comparative study of Iranian, Indian, Chinese and Japanese performing art traditions. He has played a critical role in the study of religious passion plays in Iran and what they can offer modern theater. He has just finished work on a lengthy manuscript on the origins of A Thousand and One Nights story. He offers an altogether new interpretation of the Indo-Iranian origins of these remarkable stories.

Beyzaie was born in Tehran, in December 1938. His was a family of erudite poets and literary scholars, and it did not take him long to realize that his was to be a life in arts and aesthetics.  He had a voracious appetite to read, learn and create. Myriad discursive genres and performing arts became the smithy for his unique alchemy of words and images, history and myth, the mundane and the sublime.  His unique talents as an artist and his singular accomplishments as a scholar eventually combined to make him the Chair of the Dramatic Arts Department at Tehran University, where he helped train at least two generation of artists. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, he was forced to resign from the university.  His unbending dedication to his art and to the dignity of artists and scholars, his unwillingness to allow ideological or political forces deform his ideas and art, his defiant desire to always speak truth to power have made of him a maverick. His direction of his own play, Marg Yazgerd (Death of Yazgard) remains today, almost three decades later, one of the most memorable and acclaimed theatric performances of the time. A film version of the play has also won much acclaim.

Western audiences were first introduced to Beyzaie's talents when two of his plays were performed at the Festival du Theater des Nations, in Paris in 1963. Since then, many of his plays have been performed in theaters around the world and several of his films have won acclaim at important film festivals. His works have been translated into English, French, German, Portuguese, Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic.

He is currently the Daryabari Visiting Professor of Persian Letters at Stanford University. He lives in Palo Alto with his wife, Mojdeh Shamsai, herself an acclaimed actress, and their son Niassan.

Semiotics Of Iranian Myths With Bahram Beyzai Part III

Semiotics Of Iranian Myths  With Bahram Beyzaie Part I

Inspired by the Kronos Quartet’s performance Music For Change: The Banned Countries, Stanford Live is partnering with the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies to bring together artists and Stanford foreign relations experts to discuss the impacts of the 2017 Executive Orders that limit travel from Muslim-majority countries to the US. How are these orders affecting the institutions that provide much needed cross-cultural exchange and understanding—from higher education to formal diplomacy—and how do we move forward?

Professor Abbas Milani (Director, Iranian Studies) will lead the panel conversation, including Ambassador Michael McFaul (Director, Freeman Spogli Institute), Professor Martha Crenshaw (Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute), and David Harrington (Artistic Director, Kronos Quartet).

Halting Exchange: The Travel Ban's Cultural Effects

Ali Akbar Moradi, Pejman Hedadi, Kourosh Moradi, and Arash Moradi performed at Stanford University on May 5, 2018. Concert sponsored by the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies and part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts, co-sponsored by the Persian Student Association. 

Concert by master Iranian musician Ali Akbar Moradi, joined by his two sons Kourosh and Arash Moradi. Ali Akbar plays the tanbour (Persian lute), considered the oldest string instrument of Iran. The performance is in two parts: the first part is based on Majlessi maqams, accompanying the Persian poetry of Abul-Qasim Ferdowsi Tusi and the Kurdish poet Hayran-Ali Shah. The second part is based on the Majazi maqams, using a variation of techniques and multiple arrangements. The concert itself contains a wide range of musical and technical variations, representing the rich musical and cultural heritage of Iran.

Ali Akbar Moradi began playing the tanbour at the age of seven and learned not only the music but the Kurdish maqam repertoire. He has won awards, recorded several albums, and performed in Europe, the United States, and Canada with singers like Shahram Nazeri and at the Royal Festival Hall in London. In addition to teaching the tanbour in Tehran and his hometown of Kermanshah, Ali Akbar is a dedicated scholar of the tanbour and continues to develop the legacy of the instrument and the regional Kurdish music.

Concert: Tanbours, Epics, & Mysticism

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 our podcasts or check out our youtube channel to discover Iran!

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