Stanford Iranian Studies Program

This lecture is based on Dr. Fathali M. Moghaddam’s new book "Psychology of Revolution" (Cambridge University Press, 2024) devoted to understanding the psychology of revolution—the first since Gustav Le Bon’s now classic book of 1894.Fathali Moghaddam, a psychologist who experienced revolution in Iran, his own country of birth, presents a psychological analysis and a new model of revolution based on both objective research and personal experience. The first part of the lecture critically examines revolutionary movements and the process of regime change, with reference to psychological theories of collective mobilization. In the second part, and unique to this new book on the psychology of revolution, the focus moves to what happens after regime change. It is argued that only by understanding what happens after regime change, a neglected topic, that the enigma of revolution can be solved. The concept of political plasticity is used to explain how and in what ways change does and does not take place after regime change, why so many revolutions against dictatorships lead to new dictatorships, and why in the 21st century the momentum of democracy is being challenged by authoritarian movements in many parts of the world.Fathali M. Moghaddam is Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University. Prior to joining Georgetown, he worked for the United Nations and for McGill University. His research and publications are mostly on collective mobilization, radicalization, human rights and duties, political plasticity, and intergroup conflict. He has also published on psychology and Shakespeare.Learn more about Dr. Moghaddam's new book: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/psychology-of-revolution/C1E4C74F0E7EED9B2F71A1AE134EE9F8#fndtn-metrics

Shahrnush Parsipur (1946-2026) was an acclaimed and award-winning author, and the recipient of the ninth Bita Prize in Persian Arts from Stanford University. Dr. Mandana Zandian prepared this video for the memorial event hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies on July 31, 2026 (https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/events/shahrnush-parsipur-memoriam)Mandana Zandian spent two decades as a cancer researcher at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Dr. Zandian is also a published poet and author whose work primarily documents the lives and contributions of Iranian cultural figures in exile. Her latest book, "Morgh-e Aftab" (The Sunbird), revisits the founding and the first thirteen years of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults. She also hosts and produces the Persian literature podcast "A Window of Freedom."

Shahrnush Parsipur (1946-2026) was an acclaimed and award-winning author, and the recipient of the ninth Bita Prize in Persian Arts from Stanford University. Dr. Farzaneh Milani prepared this video for the memorial event hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies on July 31, 2026 (https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/.... Farzaneh Milani is Raymond J. Nelson Professor Emerita of Iranian literature and Gender Studies at the University of Virginia.

Shahrnush Parsipur (1946-2026) was an acclaimed and award-winning author, and the recipient of the ninth Bita Prize in Persian Arts from Stanford University. Shirin Neshat prepared this video for the memorial event hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies on July 31, 2026 (https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/.... Shirin Neshat is an award-winning Iranian-born artist and filmmaker living in New York. Neshat works and continues to experiment with the mediums of photography, video, film, and opera. Neshat has directed three feature-length films, including "Women Without Men" (2009) based on Shahrnush Parsipur’s book, which received the Silver Lion Award for Best Director at the 66th Venice International Film Festival.

Shahrnush Parsipur (1946-2026) was an acclaimed and award-winning author, and the recipient of the ninth Bita Prize in Persian Arts from Stanford University. Maryam Zandi prepared this video for the memorial event hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies on July 31, 2026 (https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/....Maryam Zandi was born in 1947 in Gorgan, Iran. She is a graduate of Tehran University's School of Law and Political Science. Beginning her photography career in 1970, she was awarded with the first prize of the ministry of art and culture’s national photography competition. In 1972 she joined Iranian national TV-Radio as a photographer and later by initial publications of “Tamasha” magazine, she became Iranian Television and Tamasha magazine’s public relations photographer till 1983.Over 26 years she has created a unique extensive photography archive of famous and influential contemporary Iranian elites in the fields of literature, visual arts, cinema, theater, architecture, music and politics known as “Chehreh-ha”: Portraits.

Shahrnush Parsipur (1946-2026) was an acclaimed and award-winning author, and the recipient of the ninth Bita Prize in Persian Arts from Stanford University. Dr. Mandana Zandian prepared this video for the memorial event hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies on July 31, 2026 (https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/.... Mojdeh Shamsaie is an Iranian actress, theater practitioner, and multidisciplinary artist. A Crystal Simorgh Award winner, she has long collaborated with Bahram Beyzaie and has co-led acting workshops at Stanford University since 2014.

Shahrnush Parsipur (1946-2026) was an acclaimed and award-winning author, and the recipient of the ninth Bita Prize in Persian Arts from Stanford University. Dr. Mandana Zandian prepared this video for the memorial event hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies on July 31, 2026 (https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/.... Abbas Milani is the director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University; and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues.

In the early 1950s, there were two hot spots of the Cold War: Korea and Iran. Iranian oil had become a firebomb of the Cold War in the Middle East. It was the first oil crisis of the Cold War. The central figure of the dramatic events of 1951-1953 in Iran was Mohammad Mossadegh. He was the most popular national leader of the 20th century. The day before the appointment of Dr. Mossadegh as Prime Minister, the Majlis unanimously supported the law on the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. However, newly declassified archival documents released after the collapse of the Soviet Union, open documents of CIA, British special services and Turkish diplomatic archives have further enriched our understanding of the first oil crisis of the Cold War in Iran. This talk is based on Dr. Hasanli's forthcoming book The Iranian Oil Crisis and Mossadegh in the Cold War, 1949-1953 (Routledge, 2026).Dr. Jamil Hasanli is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (SAS) of the University of London. He was advisor to the president of Azerbaijan in 1993 and served two terms as a Member of Parliament of Azerbaijan in 2000-2010. In 2013, he was a candidate for the presidential election, representing the united opposition. Professor Hasanli was a History and Public Policy Scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center in 2011, and 2020. He received the 2015 Ion Ratiu Democracy Award of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 2016-2017 he was scholar at the Cold War Center at East China Normal University in Shanghai. Dr. Hasanli is the author of several books published in Azerbaijan, Russia, USA, UK, Turkey, Iran, Hong Kong (China) and other countries. Fouг of his monographs were published in the Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series.*Correction note from the speaker: At the 56:49 mark it is "11 tons of gold," not "11 thousand tons."

This lecture examines the role of Iran’s security forces in shaping the country’s political future amid deep uncertainty. Focusing on the IRGC, the Basij, and the broader coercive apparatus, it analyzes these institutions not only as instruments of repression but also as central political actors. Taking seriously the possibility that Iran may face a different political order by the time of this presentation, the lecture asks how security institutions may shape the outcome of a crisis, whether through regime survival, internal fragmentation, managed transition, or the consolidation of a new regime.Saeid Golkar is the UC Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He specializes in the politics of authoritarian regimes, with a particular focus on Iran and the broader Middle East. He earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Tehran and previously held research and teaching positions at Stanford University and Northwestern University. Golkar is the author of Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Post-Revolutionary Iran (Columbia University Press, 2015), which received the Washington Institute’s Silver Medal Prize. His forthcoming book, Dictators and the Higher Education Dilemma, will be published by Rutgers University Press in spring 2026.

This is a recording of a webinar held by the Stanford Iranian Studies Program on April 15, 2026. This discussion evaluates the conventional wisdom surrounding U.S. sanctions on Iran. The paper in discussion from the Stanford Iran 2040 Project is available: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/publications/irans-exports-under-sanctions-myth-maximum-pressureData from this paper shows that Iran's oil exports have not only recovered from their lowest points under strict sanctions, but now surpass the peak levels seen during the JCPOA. The authors explore the primary causes behind this rebound. The discussion also dissects the intricate barter system that allows Iran to trade oil for goods, technology, and infrastructure projects, bypassing the international financial system. They analyze how this mechanism funnels resources to entities like the IRGC, fueling both domestic suppression and foreign aggression. Finally, they assess the future of this paradigm and its implications for Iran.Matin Mirramezani manages the Stanford Iran 2040 Project and has been a contributor to the project since 2018. He studied economics at Stanford and co-founded the Generation Lab, a youth-focused data intelligence company. He is passionate about innovative research methods and policies that promote development. He is also the co-author of The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022).Sam Samani is a senior at Stanford University studying Political Science with a minor in Iranian Studies. His research focuses on Iranian elite politics, institutional continuity, and U.S. policy toward Iran, with particular attention to sanctions, succession dynamics, and state capacity. He has conducted research with the Hoover Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and has professional experience at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.Part of the Stanford Iran 2040 Project: goto.stanford.edu/iran2040

Fatima Baraghani, who is better known to history by her Shaykhi epithet, Qurrat al-‘Ayn, and her Babi penname, Tahira, was born in Qazvin in 1814 and executed in Tehran in 1852. A prominent follower first of Sayyid Kazim Rashti (d. 1843) and then the Bab (Sayyid ‘Ali-Muhammad Shirazi; executed 1850), Tahira played a significant role in the development and spread of both Shaykhism and Babism – two of the most radical movements to emerge out of Twelver Shi‘ism in Qajar Iran. As well as a charismatic orator and a learned theologian, Tahira was also an accomplished poet who used her original compositions and her reworkings of well-known poems by others to captivate her interlocutors and convince them of the veracity of her beliefs. In this lecture, Dr. Brookshaw will present poems by three of Tahira’s female contemporaries: a Shaykhi woman from Khurasan and two Qajar initiates of the Ni‘matullahi Sufi order. These women variously associated closely with Tahira in Karbala, Hamadan, and Tehran. Guided by their mentor, they joined the Babi movement. He argues that it is only through studying poets such as these that we can gain insight into the nature of the female-only social circles Tahira moved within that are hinted at in the vaguest terms in the extant chronicles and eyewitness accounts of the period.Dominic Parviz Brookshaw is Professor of Persian Literature and Iranian Culture at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow in Persian at Wadham College, Oxford. From 2011 - 2013, he was Assistant Professor of Persian and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He has published widely on premodern and modern Persian literature, and his articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals including Iranian Studies, Middle Eastern Literatures, and IRAN: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. His most recent book, Hafiz and His Contemporaries: Poetry, Performance, and Patronage in Fourteenth-century Iran (Bloomsbury, 2019), won the Saidi-Sirjani Book Award in 2020. He serves currently as the President of the Association for Iranian Studies.Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

Panel discussion with Stanford scholars and students to discuss current events related to Iran.Cosponsored by the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution.PANELISTS (in order of appearance)Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. He also chairs the Hoover Institution Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and is the principal investigator of the Global Digital Policy Incubator, part of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy. He is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy.H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. McMaster holds a PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of multiple bestselling books and has published many essays, articles, and book reviews on leadership, history, and the future of warfare.Abbas Milani is the Director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University, Adjunct Professor and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Milani has authored and translated numerous books in Persian and English and published more than 250 essays and book reviews in journals and papers. He is currently completing a book on Reza Shah.Matin Mirramezani manages the Stanford Iran 2040 Project and has been a contributor to the project since 2018. He studied economics at Stanford and co-founded the Generation Lab, a youth-focused data intelligence company. He is passionate about innovative research methods and policies that promote development. He is also the co-author of The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022).Mobina Riazi is a master’s student in communications at Stanford University, with an emphasis on media studies. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, with a minor in Iranian studies, from Stanford University in 2025. Her research focuses on media, governance, and the law, with particular attention to digital repression and state power in authoritarian contexts.Sam Samani is a senior at Stanford University studying Political Science with a minor in Iranian Studies. His research focuses on Iranian elite politics, institutional continuity, and U.S. policy toward Iran, with particular attention to sanctions, succession dynamics, and state capacity. He has conducted research with the Hoover Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and has professional experience at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Sam is currently completing an honors thesis on Iran’s political elite and is a course reader for Dr. Milani's courses on modern Iranian politics and U.S. relations with Iran.Bailey Ulbricht, JD ’22, is the founding Executive Director at the Stanford Humanitarian Program, where she works on legal projects aimed at reducing harm in conflict settings and other insecure environments. Her research interests include laws governing the use of force and the intersection of technology and international humanitarian and human rights law, including how technology can be leveraged to gather evidence of possible legal violations.Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.

February 2, 2026Mohsen B. MesgarenMatin MirramezaniMohsen AmiriRead the report: http://goto.stanford.edu/tehranprotestsThe contemporary history of Iran has been closely bound up with recurring waves of large-scale protests. From those preceding the Constitutional Revolution, the 1979 Revolution, as well as numerous demonstrations with demands ranging from the incremental to the radical, with a range of causes such as social, political, or economical. Iran’s capital, Tehran, has consistently served as a staging ground for crowds that have “poured into” the streets to voice their dissent.Most existing studies of protests in Iran rely on individual narratives or media portrayals. In the vacuum of on-the-ground reporting and empirical evidence, the current understanding of protests in Iran primarily relies on speculations and anecdotes. This study adopts a data-driven approach by compiling a structured, open-sourced archive of protests in the capital city of Tehran as the foundation for deeper analysis.This research is grounded in an original dataset of over 8,500 protest observations compiled by the authors. This comprehensive dataset was derived from a universe of about 120,000 visual documents and text-based news reports between 2009 and 2024. Each protest observation was systematically reviewed and tagged. We use this information to provide an overview of the temporal and spatial characteristics of the protests in Tehran and analyze the evolving discourse of dissent using chants from these protests. This granular data allows for an unprecedented, evidence-based look at how protest tactics and public sentiment have evolved in Iran's capital.Mohsen B. Mesgaran is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Davis, and a Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (UNU-INWEH), where he leads the Ecological Modeling and Food Security. Prior to joining UC Davis, he was a Research Scientist at Stanford University's Iranian Studies Program (Stanford Iran 2040 Project), where he conducted large-scale, data-driven studies related to land and water resources in Iran, which culminated in the co-authorship of the book The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022) https://www.sup.org/books/politics/st....Mohsen Amiri is a researcher working on urban studies and data-driven analysis of protest and dissent in Iran. He has collaborated with the Stanford Iran 2040 Project on spatiotemporal datasets on protests and urban unrest, contributing to mapping protest dynamics in Tehran and other cities. His work combines GIS and discourse analysis to examine how space and power interact during mass mobilization. He is preparing to begin his PhD at the University of Sydney, focusing on urban revolt and repression in Iran between 2009 and 2022.Matin Mirramezani manages the Stanford Iran 2040 Project and has been a contributor to the project since 2018. He studied economics at Stanford and co-founded the Generation Lab, a youth-focused data intelligence company. He is passionate about innovative research methods and policies that promote development. He is also the co-author of The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022).Part of the Stanford Iran 2040 Project

In this talk Prof. Ghadiri will discuss the beginnings of history and civilization in Iran based on recent scholarly theories; an examination of the causes behind the neglect of Iran’s authentic ancient past—one that extends far beyond the Median and Achaemenid eras—and an articulation of the benefits of adopting an informed and accurate understanding of Iran’s historical heritage.Bahram Ghadiri was born in 1949 in Tehran, Iran. He graduated from Tehran University, where he studied under noted philosophers on Islamic and Persian art and architecture such as Titus Burkhardt, Henry Corbin and Hossein Nasr. His interest in the traditional art and architecture led him to engage in practical learning with master-masons and artists. At the age of 28 he became the Director of Niyavaran National Cultural Center, one of the most prestigious centers for art and architecture in Iran. Among his many projects in Iran are the restoration and revitalization of Akhavan Sigari Mansion (Yazd), Tajrish Municipal Libraries (Tehran), Main Entrance Gate to Bazaar Shishegar Khaneh (Tabriz), Seyed Aladin Hossein Mausoleum (a village near Hamadan), Miandasht Caravansary Complex (Miandasht on Silkroad), Dar Al-fonun School (Tehran), and Khan Bathhouse (Yazd Bazaar). In 2001, the Khan Bathhouse was the winner of the Aga Khan Foundation Award for Architecture prize. As a professor of Historic Preservation in the School of Architecture & Urban Planning, Shahid Beheshti University from 1986 to 2003, Prof. Ghadiri led 16 years of research on Persian bazaars, a first of its kind in the nation, involving over 800 graduate students. The result was a complete survey of the physical and non-physical elements, and developing a methodology for study of bazaars and their causes of decay. He also served as visiting professor at the School of Architecture & Urban Planning at Yazd University and Isfahan University (1995-2001). Prof. Ghadiri is the author of four books, 30 articles and over a half a dozen academic handouts on topics of conservation and preservation of Iranian historical building, city fabric, and bazaars. He is also the founder and president of Foundation for Persian Archaeological Studies.

December 2, 2025Contrary to the widely held narrative portraying Iran and Saudi Arabia as cooperative partners during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, recently declassified diplomatic records and personal accounts from those close to the Shah reveal a far more complex picture. In the wake of Britain’s withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in 1971, the region entered a moment of uncertainty. One that seemed to offer both Iran and Saudi Arabia a chance to shape a new regional order. For a brief moment, the Shah appeared willing to engage in genuine partnership, seeking stability through coordination with Riyadh under the broader umbrella of the Nixon Doctrine.Yet, this early openness soon gave way to a vision defined by hierarchy rather than cooperation. Convinced of Iran’s historical and strategic superiority, the Shah began to imagine a Persian Gulf order centered on Iranian dominance, in which Saudi Arabia would play a secondary, supportive role. His ambitions were encouraged by American security guarantees but constrained by the limits of dependence on them - a paradox that defined Iran’s fragile autonomy during the 1970s.Drawing on newly accessible archives, including the Zahedi Papers at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, and first-hand testimonies, this lecture traces how shifting regional power dynamics, personal rivalries, and the politics of prestige shaped Iran’s approach to its Arab neighbors. It revisits key turning points, including the 1971 island crisis, to show how mistrust between Tehran and Riyadh deepened despite superficial gestures of unity. Ultimately, the lecture asks why the promise of cooperation between the two states never materialized, and what this failed friendship reveals about the tension between ambition and constraint that continues to define Iran’s role in the Persian Gulf to this day.Diba Mirzaei is a researcher at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and a PhD candidate at the University of Hamburg. Her dissertation, “Iran’s Foreign Policy toward Saudi Arabia from 1968–1979: Fragile Autonomy under the Nixon Doctrine” (submitted in June 2025), explores how Iran’s policy toward Saudi Arabia intersected with interpretations of the Shah’s autonomy.Mirzaei’s research interests include Iranian foreign policy and feminist approaches to international relations. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked at the German Federal Foreign Office in the field of humanitarian assistance.

October 30, 2025Speakers: Bailey Ulbricht, Allen Weiner, and Mobina Riazi. Read their report: https://law.stanford.edu/publications/school-poisonings-in-iran-an-open-source-investigation/On November 30, 2022, in the midst of protests around the country in Iran for the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, schoolgirls at Noor Conservatory Girls’ School in Qom City experienced a bizarre and terrifying event while at school. They smelled “poisonous gas” and experienced symptoms that sent 18 of them to the hospital. From November 2022 to May 2023, there were hundreds of similar poisoning incidents reported at schools around the country, the vast majority of them at girls’ schools. Videos captured by witnesses depicted girls coughing, vomiting, and struggling to walk in front of their schools. Yet at the same time, contradictory information began calling these incidents into question, casting doubt on the seriousness of the girls’ symptoms or claiming that the poisonings were psychological. Eventually, the Iranian government concluded in its own investigation that the vast majority of the alleged poisoning incidents were caused by girls’ anxiety or hysteria. But is that actually true?Over the past year and a half, the Stanford Humanitarian Program, with support from the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, has conducted an open-source investigation into these poisoning incidents, working to uncover what actually happened and whether the Iranian government covered them up.In this talk, Bailey Ulbricht, Allen S. Weiner, and Mobina Riazi present their newly released report on the poisoning incidents, including what happened, what the Iranian government did in response, and what the legal implications under international law are, including next steps for justice and accountability.Bailey Ulbricht, JD ’22, is the founding Executive Director at the Stanford Humanitarian Program, where she works on legal projects aimed at reducing harm in conflict settings and other insecure environments. Her research interests include laws governing the use of force and the intersection of technology and international humanitarian and human rights law, including how technology can be leveraged to gather evidence of possible legal violations.Allen S. Weiner, JD ’89, is an international legal scholar whose research and teaching focus primarily on the fields of international security and international conflict resolution. He also studies the challenges of online misinformation and disinformation. In the international security realm, his work spans such issues as international law and the response to contemporary security threats; the relationship between international and domestic law in the context of armed conflict; the law of war (international humanitarian law); just war theory, and international criminal law (including transitional justice). Weiner’s scholarship is deeply informed by experience; he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State for more than a decade advising government policymakers, negotiating international agreements, and representing the United States in litigation before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Court of Justice, and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal. Senior Lecturer Weiner is director of the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law, director of the Stanford Humanitarian Program, and director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2003, Weiner served as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague and attorney adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC. He clerked for Judge John Steadman of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.Mobina Riazi is a master’s student in communications at Stanford University, with an emphasis on media studies. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, with a minor in Iranian studies, from Stanford University in 2025. Her research focuses on media, governance, and the law, with particular attention to digital repression and state power in authoritarian contexts.

October 24, 2025The Sunbird and the Story of Kanun: Revisiting the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in IranIn 1965, a visionary proposal by Lily Amir-Arjomand to Queen Farah Pahlavi—to establish a library for children in Iran—gave rise to The Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, known in Iran simply as Kanun. Over the next thirteen years, under Amir-Arjomand’s leadership, more than 250 permanent and mobile libraries opened their doors in cities and villages across the country. Alongside them, cultural centers flourished, dedicated to publishing, cinema, theater, music, and animation for children. To mark Kanun’s 60th anniversary, Dr. Mandana Zandian's new book The Sunbird looks back at these formative years. The book unfolds in two parts, both in interview format: a long in-depth conversation with Lily Amir-Arjomand, and a collection of twenty-three short interviews with those who helped build Kanun’s diverse cultural centers or who were once members of its libraries.Lily Amir-Arjomand is the founder and first Managing director of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Iran. She studied French Literature at the University of Tehran. After completing an intensive library science training program at the Iran-America Society, she joined in developing the newly established library of the National University. A few years later, she earned a master’s degree in library science and children literature from Rutgers University in the United States and returned to Iran with the vision of establishing a children’s library. Meanwhile she managed the library of the National Iranian Oil Company for three years. In collaboration with Marguerite Hopkins, a library consultant and instructor, and four other librarians, she helped draft the statutes of the Iranian Librarians Association and contributed to organizing the master’s program in Library Science at the University of Tehran. Amir-Arjomand also taught library science at the University of Tehran for one year. Ultimately, with the support of Empress Farah Pahlavi, she founded the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in 1965 and served as its managing director until leaving Iran in 1979. In 2021, the film magazine “Sight & Sound” included Lily Amir-Arjomand in its list of “100 Hidden Cinema Heroes,” recognizing her as one of the individuals who have shaped the course of filmmaking history.Mandana Zandian graduated from Shahid Beheshti Medical School in 1997. She worked as a researcher at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles for 20 years, specializing in research on aggressive forms of advanced cancers. Dr. Zandian is also a published poet, author, and journalist, actively collaborating with "Rahavard" quarterly journal. Her books include: Omid o Azadi (Hope and Liberty, Los Angeles, 2012) on the life and works of Iraj Gorgin; Baz-khani-e Dah Shab (The Ten-Nights Revisited, Los Angeles, 2014); Ehsan Yarshater in Conversation with Mandana Zandian (Los Angeles, 2016); Persian Cypress and the Blooms of Modernity, in Conversation with Abbas Milani (Los Angeles, 2023). She also edited Yaddashtha (Diaries, Washington DC, 2021), a collection of notes written between 1986-2012 for the journals "Irannameh" and "Iranshenasi" by Dr. Ehsan Yarshater. Zandian's most recent collection of poems is titled Seda-ye Saye-haye Ham Boodim (Our Voice Echoed the Shadows of All, Los Angeles, 2019). Dr. Zandian is also the host and producer of a podcast on Persian Literature titled "A Window of Freedom." She collaborated on a section of Homa Sarshar's weekly radio program, introducing Persian contemporary poets, for 10 years. Zandian's latest book, Morgh-e Aftab (The Sunbird), revisits the establishment and the first 13 years of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults.

October 4, 2025Hossein Amanat established his international reputation in 1966 when, as a recent graduate, he won a nationwide competition to design the Shahyad (now Azadi) Monument in Tehran—an architectural icon that has since become a symbol of modern Iran. This early success led to a series of prestigious commissions, including some of the most acclaimed modern buildings in Iran: the Persian Heritage Centre; the School of Management at the University of Tehran; the Aryamehr (now Sharif) University of Technology; the Iranian Embassy in Beijing—regarded as one of the architectural highlights of the city's diplomatic quarter—and the planning of Darya Kenar, a new town on the Caspian Sea.Born in Iran in 1942, it was remarkable that such a young architect was entrusted with projects of this scale and importance. Even more significant is Amanat’s distinctive design philosophy: among the first Iranian architects to harmonize contemporary architectural principles with the rich legacy of traditional Persian design. At a time when Western cultural and artistic influence was dominant in Iran—and when many architects were following the International Style—Amanat was pioneering an original synthesis of modernity and tradition.Amanat’s innovative practice, deeply rooted in Persian architectural heritage, was abruptly interrupted by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, marking a dramatic turning point in his life and career. As a member of the persecuted Baha'i faith, he and his young family were forced into exile. Following a brief stay in Europe, they immigrated to Canada in 1980, where Amanat established a renewed and diverse architectural practice.Amanat’s work has earned many design awards and led to global invitations to lecture on architecture. He is among the founding faculty of the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), a grassroots institution established in response to the Iranian government’s systematic denial of education to Baha'is. He has also contributed to the University of British Columbia (UBC) as a visiting critic at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and recently served on a committee that successfully raised funds for a new tenure-track position in Persian Language and Iranian Studies.In recognition of his lifetime achievements and contributions to architecture, Hossein Amanat was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by UBC in May 2024—a fitting tribute to a visionary architect whose work continues to inspire. Deeply engaged with Iranian history and literature, Amanat consistently draws on these cultural sources, demonstrating a remarkable ability to blend diverse traditions into his distinctive, enduring architectural language.ABOUT THE BITA PRIZE FOR PERSIAN ARTS:The annual Bita Prize for Persian Arts is awarded by the Stanford Iranian Studies Program to an artist of Iranian ancestry whose work, in the course of their lifetime, has exhibited singular achievements in both the realm of aesthetics and in the essence of defending the rights of artists to create, free from any fetters. The recipient is invited to Stanford University to give a public lecture and receive the prize. Since its inception in 2008, the Bita Prize has been awarded to outstanding Iranian scholars, artists and creators.

From 1932 to 1948, architects and engineers from the First Republic of Czechoslovakia, working under Skoda Works of Plzen, partnered with the Iranian government led by Reza Shah Pahlavi to support the country's ambitious modernization program. This collaboration focused on expanding industrial enterprises across key sectors, including electrical, agricultural, defense, and railway infrastructure. Alongside Scandinavian engineers from Kampsax and British experts from Anglo-Persian Oil, the Czechoslovakians became instrumental in shaping the industrial landscape of modern Iran. During this period, two Czechoslovak architects—Leopold Czihal and Stanislav Suva—who were strong proponents of the Vienna School of Architecture, worked closely with Reza Shah and Iran’s emerging architectural talent, including Mohsen Foroughi and Eugene Aftandilian. Drawing on the rationalist principles of Modernism and the legacy of Achaemenid architecture, they sought to create a distinct architectural identity for Iran. Their collaboration led to the design of iconic buildings such as the Ministry of War, the Ramsar Casino, the Palace of Justice, and the Ministry of Finance—structures that laid the groundwork for modern Iranian architecture. Based on research conducted by Reza Alirezaieyan for a book recently published by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, this presentation will, for the first time, present this remarkable history in detail.Reza Alirezaieyan is an Iranian architectural historian residing in Dallas, United States. One might say he was destined to study the history of Iranian industry and architecture: on his father’s side, his ancestors helped construct oil refineries in Abadan, while on his mother’s, they participated in building the Trans-Iranian Railway. He has long been dedicated to investigating and documenting the pivotal transformation of Iranian architecture, and his unique perspective—merging technical expertise with a passion for history—offers a fresh and invaluable insight into a key period of Iran’s past.

September 5, 2025On The Rocky Road Of Life is the richly detailed personal and professional memoir of Zakaria Hashemi—an artist whose life story unfolds across the alleys and seasons of Tehran, from the scorching heat to the biting cold, from the south to the north of the city during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The book traces his early days, growing up amid poverty in the neighborhoods of Shahr-e Rey and southern Tehran, where a spirit of athleticism and community prevailed, and follows his entry into cinema as a background actor in the early 1950s.Hashemi’s gradual emergence into Iran’s intellectual circles begins with his encounter with Farrokh Ghaffari, leading to his involvement in landmark films like South of the City (1958) and Night of the Hunchback (1963). His pivotal meeting with Ebrahim Golestan and Forough Farrokhzad not only earned him the lead role in one of the most significant cultural films in Iranian cinema history (Brick and Mirror, 1965) but also inspired him to write novels such as The Parrot and The Crumpled Coloured Papers. In Golestan Studio, he emerged as one of the boldest voices in Iranian naturalist fiction, unafraid to write candidly about lived experience, all while preserving a lyrical tone rooted in the rhythm of spoken Persian.The memoir is both a cinematic and literary journey. It charts the course of pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema—both popular and intellectual—while following Hashemi’s transformation from actor to filmmaker. Alongside his artistic development, the book delves into his personal and romantic life in a society experiencing rapid development but also plagued by opportunists and deceitful individuals, whose detailed accounts are shared without exaggeration but with insight into the social trust and naivety of the time.Covering the entirety of Iran’s sociopolitical evolution during the Pahlavi era, the book also captures the confusion and stagnation that followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution for many artists, investors, and civil servants. It reflects on the waves of bans, censorship, war, and the radical rewriting of reality that eventually led to the author’s involuntary exile—an exile that has now lasted over forty years.On The Rocky Road Of Life is not merely the story of one remarkable artistic life—it’s also a vibrant social document. Through vivid dialogue and detailed observations, Hashemi presents one of the most comprehensive portraits of everyday Iranians, from laborers, addicts, and athletes to poets, painters, filmmakers, and statesmen. For those who never lived through that era—or never had someone patiently recount it for them—this memoir is a rare and invaluable record. It is the heartfelt tale of an Iran once on the rise, later trapped in deadlock, told by a witness with clear eyes and an open mind.Zakaria Hashemi is an acclaimed director, novelist, and actor. He has made several documentaries for Iranian national television. He has also directed three feature films, including Se Ghaap (1971). He was the lead actor in several Iranian films including Ebrahim Golestan’s Brick and Mirror (1965) and Amir Naderi’s Khodahafez Rafigh (1971). Mr. Hashemi has written seven books, including Tooti (1969), With Open Eyes (2004), and The Vagabond (2021). Mr. Hashemi’s writing skills were discovered by Forugh Farrokzad, while he was working at Studio Golestan in the 1960’s.Book passage reading by Russell Parsi.Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

June 10, 2025Ehssan HanifFifth Zahedi Family Fellow lecture held at Stanford University.Following a brief period of oil nationalization, the 1953 coup that overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh marked a critical turning point in Iran’s political and economic trajectory. The coup paved the way for the 1954 Consortium Agreement—a pivotal settlement between the Iranian state and the global oil cartel known as the “Seven Sisters,” of which five were American corporations. Framed as part of a broader strategy for Iran’s modernization, the consortium agreement and its accompanying financial arrangements positioned oil revenues as the engine of national development. This framework not only redefined the management of Iran’s subsoil wealth but also cemented a decisive turn in the country’s foreign policy, shifting the axis of influence from British imperial control to expanding American oversight. This lecture, beginning with the 1920s, traces the power dynamics over Iran’s subsoil that culminated in the 1954 consortium and the accompanying geopolitical shift. It interrogates how oil functioned not merely as an economic resource but as a fulcrum of political sovereignty and international leverage. In particular, this talk examines how British and Russian colonial entanglements fueled Iran’s geopolitical anxieties, ultimately rendering American intervention not only acceptable but, at moments, desirable to segments of the Iranian authorities. By foregrounding oil as a central actor in this drama, this talk aims to shed light on how subterranean resources reshaped Iran’s developmental imaginaries and geopolitical alignments —particularly its pivot toward the United States—even before the onset of the Cold War. Ehssan Hanif is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Architecture and Urban Development at Cornell University. His research, tentatively titled Petro-domesticity and Modernity in Iran (1929–1963), explores the intricate history of oil and architectural modernity within Iranian domestic spaces, mapping their manifestations from Abadan to Tehran. In his work, he examines how the interplay between oil workers’ movements, international interests in Iran’s subsoil resources, and nationalist discourses reshaped housing projects across Iranian cities. Prior to his time at Cornell, he worked as an independent researcher and translator in Iran, translating several seminal texts into Persian, including Architecture and Modernity (H. Heynen), Benjamin for Architects (B. Elliot), The Story of Post-modernism (C. Jenks), and Aesthetic Theory: Essential Texts (M.F. Gage). Ehssan’s latest scholarly contribution, “Cinemas on Fire: Walter Benjamin’s Spielraum and the 1979 Revolution in Iran,” is forthcoming in Middle East Critique.

A book talk with two of the authors of "Revolutionary Engineers: Learning, Politics, and Activism at Aryamehr University of Technology" (MIT press, 2025).In 1966, the Shah of Iran established Arya-Mehr University of Technology (AMUT), now known as Sharif University of Technology, as part of a larger campaign to modernize the nation. In 1979, AMUT engineering students played a critical role in the revolution that overthrew the Shah and his regime. In Revolutionary Engineers, Sepehr Vakil, Mahdi Ganjavi, and Mina Khanlarzadeh show how Western notions of scientific and technical rigor combined in unexpected ways with Iranian and Islamic values at AMUT in the years directly preceding the 1979 Iranian revolution. They also argue that global perspectives, particularly from the Global South, can deepen and complicate contemporary discussions on ethics, epistemology, and knowledge production in STEM fields.The authors present the cultural, political, and pedagogical history of AMUT, from its 1966 establishment up to its pivotal role in the 1979 revolution, while delving into the complex interplay of global, national, and Islamic values in STEM education. In the past several years, STEM education scholars have challenged the epistemological and ontological foundations of STEM education research and practice, while deepening the field's engagement with questions of power, ethics, race, and justice. The case of AMUT presents the opportunity to contribute a Global South perspective to studies of the civic, cultural, and political functions and foundations of science and engineering education. Sharif University continues to be at the epicenter of politics in Iran.Mahdi Ganjavi, PhD (University of Toronto), is a distinguished historian of education, print, and literature in the Middle East. A former postdoctoral fellow at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, he currently teaches at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on intellectual freedom, the transnational history of literature, books, education, print, and translation, as well as the politics of archives and counter-archiving practices in the contemporary Middle East.Ganjavi’s book, "Education and the Cultural Cold War in the Middle East: The Franklin Book Programs in Iran" (2023), received the Middle East Librarians Association (MELA) 2023 Book Award. His second monograph (co-authored), titled "Revolutionary Engineers: Learning, Politics, and Activism at Aryamehr University of Technology," is forthcoming from MIT Press in 2025. Ganjavi’s scholarly writings, essays, and reviews have appeared in The American Archivist, International Journal of Lifelong Education, Encyclopaedia Iranica, Iranian Studies, and Review of Middle East Studies.Sepehr Vakil is a scholar, writer, educator, speaker, and recognized leader in the field of education. He is an associate professor of Learning Sciences in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, where he is also the founding faculty director of the Technology, Policy, and Opportunity Center and the Technology, People, and Policy M.S program. He received his PhD in the Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology program at UC Berkeley (2016) and his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from UCLA (2007). He is currently serving as Senior Adviser to the Spencer Foundation on their Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiative and was recently appointed to the National Academy of Science Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) committee on Developing Competencies for the Future of Data and Computing: The Role of K-12. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor and Associate Director of Equity for the Center of STEM Education at the University of Texas at Austin.

May 23, 2025Mahasti Afshar joins us to discuss her book Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis 1967-1977 (Mage Publishers, 2025), an international event that was held every summer between 1976-1977 in Shiraz and Persepolis. The festival presented outstanding works in music, dance, drama, and film from around the world with the goal of generating a cross-cultural dialogue and enriching the Iranian creative domain in the process.Afshar explores the festival’s formation under the patronage of Queen Farah Pahlavi and its administration by the National Iranian Television under the direction of Reza Ghotbi. Many of the classical, modern, and experimental works that stood out for the audience and cultural critics are summarized in the book. These include Iranian music, Shia passion plays and Shahnameh recitations, and new and original plays, feature films and documentaries by Iranian artists, as well as works commissioned by the festival from foreign artists created in dialogue with Iran’s cultural heritage.An English article on the Shiraz Festival is available online at Iran Namag 4, no. 2 (Summer 2019) and under the name of Mahasti Afshar in www.academia.edu.Mahasti Afshar was an employee at the National Iranian Television responsible for recording the Shiraz Festival programs live for later broadcasting on television. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indo-European Folklore and Mythology at Harvard and pursued a career as a nonprofit executive at the Getty Conservation Institute and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She now devotes herself to translating and writing, most recently Lament for Siavash, which she presented at Stanford last spring, Simorgh: Portraits on My Mind, and Shiraz Arts Festival (in Persian). Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

May 22, 2025Simorgh: Portraits on My Mind (Mage Publishers, 2025), is one of Abbas Milani’s most self-reflective and engaging books. The two-part Persian original, Si-Chehreh, has been masterfully translated by Mahasti Afshar in a single volume. Titled Simorgh after the mythical bird that embodies humanity’s collective quest for the truth in Attar’s poetry, Milani explores the lives and passions, illusions, utopian aspirations, frailties, harrowing experiences of prison and exile, and the diasporic accomplishments of sixty Iranians who actively or inadvertently paved the way to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.Milani lived and worked in Iran until 1987 and was deeply embedded in the crosscurrents of the lives of the nationalist, Tudeh’i, Stalinist, Maoist, Islamist, and/or the politically unaffiliated individuals portrayed in what he calls nonfiction, historical short stories. They include some of Iran’s most renowned writers, politicians, scholars, artists, and activists as well as Milani’s friends and family who act as a backdrop against which the saga unfolds. Anyone who lived in Iran in the 1960s-1970s will likely recognize something of themselves in these personalities, or in Milani himself whose presence runs like a current through all the portraits.The conversation will be led jointly by Abbas Milani and Mahasti Afshar. They will share their stories, in English, about their collaboration, and read excerpts from both the original and the translation.Mahasti Afshar (Ziai) earned a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indo-European Folklore and Mythology at Harvard. She pursued a career as a nonprofit arts and culture executive, including at the Getty Conservation Institute and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She now devotes herself to translating and writing, most recently Lament for Siavash, which she presented at Stanford last spring, Simorgh: Portraits on My Mind, and Shiraz Arts Festival (in Persian).Abbas Milani is the Director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University, Adjunct Professor and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Milani has authored and translated numerous books in Persian and English and published more than 250 essays and book reviews in journals and papers. He is currently completing a book on Reza Shah.Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

May 15, 2025The relationship between music and revolution has often been a fraught one. This lecture discusses the tension between the two, focusing on the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It chronicles the evolution of state policy towards music in the years 1979-1988 against the background of doctrinal discussions within Twelver Shiism in Iran, that pitted traditionalists against the charismatic authority of Ayatollah Khomeini, which ultimately imposed itself. The lecture provides comparative perspectives by adducing evidence from other instances of tensions between music and religious revolution.Houchang Chehabi is a professor of international relations and history emeritus at Boston University. He is the author of three books and editor or co-editor of twelve books, most recently Unconquered States: Non-Western Powers in the Imperial Age (OUP, 2024).Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

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 University explored the connections between self-sufficiency, food security, and the pressures on Iran’s water and agricultural systems. The discussion examined whether the drive for self-sufficiency has contributed to water resource depletion and environmental degradation. It also addressed whether technological advancements could help resolve water challenges and enable sustainable self-sufficiency or secure food production through more efficient agricultural practices. The dialogue offered insights into balancing agricultural goals with environmental and water resource management. The conversation was moderated by Matin Mirramezani, the Stanford Iran 2040 Project Manager at the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University. Kaveh Madani is the Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) and the Founding Chair of the UNU Sustainability Nexus AID Programme. Additionally, he holds a Research Professorship at the City University of New York's Remote Sensing Earth Systems Institute. Dr. Madani is a distinguished environmental scientist, educator, and leader renowned for his interdisciplinary approach to addressing complex environmental and human security challenges. He has previously served as the Deputy Head of Iran’s Department of Environment. He joined UNU from Yale University and prior to his public service, he was a tenured faculty member of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. He has over 350 publications addressing critical issues such as water management, environmental policy, energy systems, food security, climate change adaptation, and environmental diplomacy across various regions. His pioneering contributions to science, policy, and society have earned him multiple prestigious awards, including the New Face of Civil Engineering (ASCE), Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists (EGU), Walter Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (ASCE), Ambassador Award (AGU), and Honorary Diplomate (EWRA).Mohsen B. Mesgaran is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis, and a Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (UNU-INWEH), where he leads the Ecological Modeling and Food Security. As an agroecologist and modeler, Dr. Mesgaran works at the intersection of agriculture, ecology, and technology, employing quantitative approaches that integrate statistical and mathematical models, physiological (crop growth) models, and machine learning (AI) to develop “eco-tech” solutions for the ecological management of agricultural and natural systems. His overarching research goal is to enhance the sustainability of agroecosystems and reduce the environmental impact of agricultural practices through the integration of ecological principles, agronomy, and advanced technology. Prior to joining UC Davis, he was a Research Scientist at Stanford University's Iranian Studies Program (Stanford Iran 2040 Project), where he conducted large-scale, data-driven studies related to land and water resources in Iran, which culminated in the co-authorship of the book The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022).Part of the Stanford Iran 2040 Project. https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/iran-2040-project/home

April 29, 2025از 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 گفتن بود، گفتم:“I wish there was quietude; it’s a time of noise and commotion. Silence is a gem hard or even impossible to find. Lovers of language, are loveless now, otherwise the Persian language is in its prime. One can even plant ancient and everyday words side by side; beautiful, clear and articulate, without any explanation or description, it flourishes, takes and bears fruit. I wish it were possible to sincerely sit and only speak and write. Our opportunity—let me be more precise, my opportunity—was tight and tart. I had to say, and I said it.”وقتی نام خانوادگی آدم عظیمی باشد، بهترین اسم کوچک هم عبدالعلی‌ست. در واقع، من در ۱۴ بهمن ۱۳۳۶ دنیا آمده‌ام، اما در شناسنامه ۲۴ بهمن ۱۳۳۵ قید شده است. زادگاهم ابرکوه است که به ابرقو معروف است. تا زمان دستگیری (۱۳۵۴) همان‌جا درس می‌خواندم. دیپلمم را در زندان گرفتم و پس از آن در دانشگاه تهران در رشتهٔ فلسفه قبول شدم که با وقوع انقلاب فرهنگی به ابرقو بازگشتم و به کشاورزی پرداختم. تا سال ۶۹، علی‌رغم بازگشایی دانشگاه، از ادامهٔ تحصیل محروم شدم. پس از کسب اجازه، تغییر رشته و دانشگاه دادم و در رشتهٔ زبان و ادبیات فرانسه دانشگاه شهید بهشتی درس خواندم. دانشگاه حقیقی من وقتی شروع شد که پس از آشنایی با دوستان نویسنده و شاعر، از جمله اکبر سردوزامی، مرتضی ثقفیان، کامران بزرگ‌نیا و...، با گلشیری آشنا شدم و در جمع پنجشنبه‌ها پذیرفته شدم. با داستان شروع کردم و از سال ۶۶ با شعر آشنا شدم. دو مجموعه شعر، «با نام گل» و «از جغرافیای من»، منتشر کرده‌ام و در هر نشریه‌ای که گلشیری سردبیر بود ــ مفید، زنده‌رود و کارنامه ــ از جمله دبیران شعر آن‌ها بوده‌ام. در حال حاضر، از تابستان ۱۴۰۳ به ابرکوه برگشته‌ام و به‌همراه گربه‌ها، مرغ‌ها و خروس‌ها در خانهٔ پدری زندگی می‌کنم و به‌جز شعر، مشغولیت و مسئولیتی ندارم.“When one's last name is Azimi (great), the best first name is also Abdolali (servant of the great Ali). In fact, I was born on February 3, 1958, but my birth certificate notes February 13, 1957.My birthplace is Abarkuh, which is known as Abarghoo. I studied there until my arrest (1975). I received my diploma in prison and afterwards, I was admitted to the University of Tehran for Philosophy, but with the events of the cultural revolution, I returned to Abarghoo and took up farming. Until 1990, despite the reopening of the university, I was prohibited from continuing my education. After obtaining permission, I changed my university and field of study and studied French Language and Literature at Shahid Beheshti University.My real university began when, after getting acquainted with writer and poet friends, including Akbar Sardouzami, Morteza Saqfian, Kamran Bozorgnia, and others, I met Houshang Golshiri and was accepted into the Thursday gatherings. I started with stories and became acquainted with poetry in 1987. I have published two poetry collections, "Ba Nam-e Gol (With the Name of the Flower)" and "Az Goghrafiyaye Man (From My Geography)," and every publication where Golshiri was the editor-in-chief, such as Mofid, Zendeh-Rood, and Karnameh, I was the poetry editor as well.Since the summer of 2024, I have returned to Abarkooh and live in my family home along with the cats, chickens, and roosters, and besides poetry, I have no other occupation or responsibility.”

April 18, 2025Discussion 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 confront the challenges of a harsh life.Despite the captain's deep desire to be a devoted and caring father, he finds himself unable to fulfill his role and connect with his daughter in the way that he longs to.One morning, their lives change forever when an unforeseen event occurs. Whether this event proves to be a newfound source of hope or an additional burden remains to be seen.”Hossein Molayemi completed his M.A. in animation directing at the Tehran University of Art and started his professional career in 2004. His work includes directing, character design, storyboard artist, animator and university lecturer. In the Shadow of the Cypress is his second professional film. His first film, "Run Rostam Run" (2017) was selected at Annecy, Warsaw and several other Oscar-qualifying film festivals and won national and international awards. He is a board member of ASIFA Iran and the Animation Filmmakers Guild of Iran.Shirin Sohani completed her M.A. in animation directing at the Tehran University of Art. She started her professional career in 2012 and has worked as a concept artist, background artist, script writer and production manager. In the Shadow of the Cypress is her first professional film. Her graduation animated film, "The Fan" (2014) won both national and international awards.Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

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, technocrats, railway workers, tourists and pilgrims, as well as European imperial officials alike. Iran in Motion: Mobility, Space, and the Trans-Iranian Railway (Stanford University Press, 2021) tells the hitherto unexplored stories of these individuals as they experienced new levels of mobility.Mikiya Koyagi is Assistant Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Texas at Austin. His research explores mobility and space in Iranian and inter-Asian history. His first book, Iran in Motion: Mobility, Space, and the Trans-Iranian Railway, was published from Stanford University Press in 2021. He is currently working on a new project on Japan’s Islamic Pan-Asianism since the late nineteenth century.

March 6, 2025A 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. Nelson Professor Emerita of Iranian literature and Gender Studies at the University of Virginia. She has published several articles and books, most recently, The Literary Biography of Forugh Farrokhzad and Unpublished Letters. Milani is currently working on a book project tentatively titled, “Iranian Women Writers at the Threshold of the Local and the Global.”Sepideh Mohammadian was born in 1986 in Tehran, Iran. She is an author, screenwriter and researcher. She earned her BA in Law and MA in sociology and is fluent in Farsi, English, French and Turkish. Mohammadian has been writing for 20 years now, working with Roshangaran Publication since the beginning of her career as a writer. She has worked with several literary magazines in Iran having published short stories and also is a member of Pen America. Mohammadian’s research works focus on semiotics in films and the difficulties social, racial and sexual minorities face in society. She has written eight books some of which are banned in Iran. Her latest book, The Assembly of the Forgotten, which was banned in Iran, was recently published by Mehri Publication in London. Since she has been advocating for the freedom to write, particularly for marginalized voices, she actively promotes and highlights banned books by fellow writers on her social media platforms, aiming to raise awareness of their work and the unjust censorship they face.Negar Mottahedeh is a Professor of Literature at Duke University. Her research on film, social media, and social movements in the Middle East has been published with Stanford University Press, Syracuse University Press, Duke University Press. This includes her monographs Whisper Tapes: Kate Millet in Iran which was published with Stanford UP in 2019, Displaced Allegories: Iranian Cinema 1980-2000 published with DUP in 2008 and #iranelection: hashtag solidarity and the transformation of online life. She has written for WIRED magazine, The Hill, Salon.com, The Observer and The Wall Street Journal. She holds a PhD in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society from the University of Minnesota and a BA in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College. Nahid Pirnazar is a lecturer of Iranian Studies at UCLA where she received her Ph.D. in 2004 in Iranian Studies with an emphasis on Judeo-Persian literature and Iranian Jewish History. She has been teaching the Habib Levy Visiting Professorship of Judeo-Persian Literature at UCLA since 2000, and the History of Iranian Jews at UCLA since 2007. Pirnazar is the founder and president of The House of Judeo-Persian Manuscripts, an academic organization, which collects, preserves, transliterates and publishes Judeo-Persian manuscripts. She presents her research internationally, which focuses on varied aspects of Judeo-Persian writings and Iranian literature as well as the history, culture and national identity of Iranian Jews.Mona Tajali is a scholar of gender and politics, specializing in women's political participation and representation in Muslim countries, with a comparative focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Her research includes analysis of feminist mobilization against patriarchal structures as well as the experiences of institutionalization of women's rights in semi-democratic and non-democratic contexts. She is the author of Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table (2022) and co-author of Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (2011), both published as open access. She is also the co-editor of Women and Constitutions in Muslim Contexts (2024), the first compilation analyzing several national constitutions of the Muslim world through a gender lens. A firm believer in engaging across the academic-practitioner divide, Tajali has been a long-term collaborator with transnational solidarity network and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), and, since 2019, has served as a member of its executive board. She is published in both academic and popular outlets, among them the Middle East Journal, Politics & Gender, The Conversation, and The Washington Post. Tajali is a former associate professor of international relations and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.Sponsored by Stanford's Green Library and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies

March 6, 2025A 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 for Middle East Collections at the Stanford University Libraries. His most recent book is a critical edition of Hayati Tabrizi’s (d. after 1554) newly-found chronicle of the early Safavids and the opening years of the reign of Shah Isma’il I (New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society, 2018).Homa Sarshar is a published author, award-winning journalist, writer, and media personality. She is the author of five books and the editor of nine volumes. From 1964 to 1978, she worked as a correspondent, reporter, and columnist for Zan-e Ruz weekly magazine and Kayhan daily newspaper in Iran. From 1972 to 1978 she worked as a television producer, director, and talk-show host for National Iranian Radio & Television. In 1978, Sarshar moved to Los Angeles where she resumed her career as a freelance journalist, radio and television producer, and on-air host. In 1982 as the co-producer, writer, and talk-show host of Omid Radio she co-founded a daily AM radio broadcast. In 1996, Sarshar founded the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History (CIJOH) in Los Angeles. In 2006, she founded Honar Foundation in Los Angeles. From 2006 until March 2021 Sarshar has been producing, writing, and hosting a two hour weekly radio show at 670AM KIRN. She earned a BA in French literature from Tehran University; a MA in journalism from the Annenberg School of Communications, USC; and a Ph.D. (HC) in Journalism from College of Letters and Science at the American World University – LA, CA. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Medal for Special Achievement in Women's Rights, given by The Iranian Women's Organization of Tehran, Iran; Journalism Award: Distinguished Iranian Women by the Encyclopaedia Iranica; Commendation for Community Affairs Services by the County of Los Angeles; 2013 Ellis Island Medal of Honor; 2016 American Heritage Award by American Immigration Council; and in 2023 the 13th Bita Prize for Persian Arts - Stanford University, Iranian Studies.Mandana Zandian graduated from Shahid Beheshti Medical School in 1997. She worked as a researcher at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles for 20 years, specializing in research on aggressive forms of advanced cancers. Dr. Zandian is also a published poet, author, and journalist, actively collaborating with "Rahavard" quarterly journal. Her books include: Omid o Azadi (Hope and Liberty, Los Angeles, 2012) on the life and works of Iraj Gorgin; Baz-khani-e Dah Shab (The Ten-Nights Revisited, Los Angeles, 2014); Ehsan Yarshater in Conversation with Mandana Zandian (Los Angeles, 2016); She also edited Yaddashtha (Diaries, Washington DC, 2021), a collection of notes written between 1986-2012 for the journals "Irannameh" and "Iranshenasi" by Dr. Ehsan Yarshater. Zandian's most recent collection of poems is titled Seda-ye Saye-haye Ham Boodim (Our Voice Echoed the Shadows of All, Los Angeles, 2019). Dr. Zandian is also the host and producer of a podcast on Persian Literature titled "A Window of Freedom." She collaborated on a section of Homa Sarshar's weekly radio program, introducing Persian contemporary poets, for 10 years. Zandian's latest book is titled Persian Cypress and the Booms of Modernity, in Conversation with Abbas Milani (Los Angeles, 2023).Abbas Milani is the Director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University, an Adjunct Professor, and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Milani is the author of numerous books in Persian and English. Most recently, he published 30 Portraits (Persian Circle). Milani has also translated numerous books and articles into Persian and English. He has published more than 250 essays and book reviews in journals and papers.Sponsored by Stanford's Green Library and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies.

February 13, 2025This 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 appears to be today, but as a capacious faith that accommodated alcohol consumption as the privilege of youth and the prerogative of royalty, enabling the sin of drinking to be expiated through repentance, and conniving at the drinking of commoners so long as it did not disturb the social order.Rudi Matthee is the John and Dorothy Munroe Professor of History at the University of Delaware and President of the Persian Heritage Foundation.

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 establish connections with other cultures and people. Consequently, the years leading up to the twenty-first century saw a noticeable increase in such collaborations both within Iran and abroad. This presentation offers a detailed historical analysis of intercultural music-making in Iran and among the Iranian diaspora. This analysis encompasses both improvised music, often linked to jazz and occasionally drawing inspiration from African or Eastern traditions. It also includes fully composed music, which is influenced by Western classical and contemporary music.By examining the musical and extramusical concepts embedded in these intercultural collaborations, this discussion will delve into the underlying motivations driving such initiatives in Iran and compare them to those within the Iranian diaspora. Along this trajectory, this presentation will illuminate the distinctions between modernization and inclusiveness. It will also explore how these two concepts intersect within intercultural collaborations involving musicians from the broader Iranian diaspora. Ultimately, this research seeks to distinguish between imbalanced intercultural encounters that superficially exploit culture for exoticism and those that earnestly strive to establish a new liberal space for creative expression.Note: This talk is based on a forthcoming chapter "Intercultural Music in Iran and its Diaspora: A path to inclusiveness or an opportunity for modernization" which is scheduled to be published in December 2025 in a book titled "Iran Amplified: One hundred Years of Music and Society," edited by Nahid Siamdoust and Houchang Chehabi.Hesam Abedini is a performer, composer, improviser, producer, and educator serving as Assistant Professor of Music at Butte College. His work transcends traditional boundaries, seamlessly blending contemporary music, classical Persian music, free improvisation, and computer music. As the founding member of Sibarg, an Intercultural Creative ensemble, he bridges traditional Persian music with jazz influences. His compositions have been performed by renowned ensembles including the JACK Quartet, Atlas Ensemble, Del Sol Quartet, Loadbang, Miolina, and Eclipse Quartet.Hesam is also the director of "From Isfahan to Irvine," a documentary film sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute. A graduate of the Tehran Music Conservatory, he holds a B.A. in Music Composition with honors from UC San Diego and completed his PhD in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology (ICIT) at UC Irvine as a Roshan and Provost PhD Fellow.Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

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 that govern this dynamic behavior and explore how breaking certain physical symmetries, like the familiar flow of time, allows life to organize itself in unexpected ways. I will show how these discoveries help us understand the intricate patterns inside cells, reveal surprising new properties of living materials, and offer a fresh perspective on the physics that shapes the natural world around us.Nikta Fakhri is an associate Professor in the Department of Physics at MIT and Physics of Living Systems Group. She completed her undergraduate degree at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran and her PhD at Rice University, Houston, TX. She was a Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellow at Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, Germany before joining MIT. Nikta is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Physics. She is the recipient of the 2018 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Biological Physics, the 2019 NSF CAREER Award, and the 2022 American Physical Society Early Career Award in Soft Matter Research.The annual "Christine Mona Khademi Lecture" at the Stanford Iranian Studies Program has been made possible through a generous gift from Monib Khademi, MBA '90. In memory of Christine Mona Khademi, B.S. '12, the lecture seeks to support and highlight the work of women in particular who are making substantial contributions to Iranian culture and society in the fields of politics, science, technology, public service, art, or culture.00:00-03:30: Introduction03:34-10:03: Monib Khademi Welcome10:13-49:50: Dr. Nikta Fakhri lecture49:51-1:25:58: Audience Q&A

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, and the nature of the Talmud? To date, the answer to these questions has been relatively straightforward: the Sasanian Empire impacted Jews precisely by leaving them to thrive in seclusion. Based on Simcha Gross' recently published book, Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity, this lecture offers a new understanding of both Jewish society and Sasanian rule, opening new vistas on the social, cultural, and historical dimensions of their intertwined histories.Simcha Gross is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, interested in the religious, social, and cultural developments of Jewish communities in the Near East set within their Roman, Persian, and Islamic contexts. He was formerly a member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and is currently an Honorary Fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University and a recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experience Researchers.

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 officials, and other archival materials from the Zahedi collection at the Hoover Archives. Hussein Banai is an Associate Professor of International Studies in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he is also faculty affiliate in the departments of Political Science, Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, and Central Eurasian Studies. He is also a Research Affiliate at the Center for International Studies at MIT. Banai's research interests lie at the intersection of political thought and international relations, with a special focus on topics in democratic theory, non-Western liberal thought, diplomatic history and theory, US-Iran relations, and Iran’s political development. He has published on these topics in academic, policy, and popular periodicals.He is the author of Hidden Liberalism: Burdened Visions of Progress in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2020); co-author of two volumes on US-Iran relations: Republics of Myth: National Narratives and the US-Iran Conflict (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) and Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979–1988 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012); and co-editor of Human Rights at the Intersections: Transformation through Local, Global, and Cosmopolitan Challenges (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023). Additionally, he is the Co-Editor of International Studies Review, the flagship review journal of the International Studies Association. From 2018 to 2020, he served as an Associate Editor (for Social Sciences) of Iranian Studies, the journal of the Association for Iranian Studies.

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 mysteries. To answer this question, we focus on a crucial, yet often overlooked player: magnetic fields. However, observing magnetic fields is not an easy task. In this talk, Dr. Mehrnoosh Tahani will discuss how novel methods of observing and studying magnetic fields are reshaping our understanding of how galaxies evolve to form stars, shedding light on the mysteries of magnetic galaxies.Mehrnoosh Tahani focuses on finding innovative ways to observe and study cosmic and interstellar magnetic fields. As a Banting Fellow, sponsored by Canada with the privilege of choosing any eligible university worldwide, she selected Stanford University, where she also holds a Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) Fellowship. Previously, Mehrnoosh was a Research Associate (Covington Fellow) at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory with the National Research Council Canada. She obtained her PhD from the University of Calgary, having moved to Canada for graduate studies after completing her undergraduate degree at Sharif University in Tehran. Initially drawn to particle physics during her time at Sharif, Mehrnoosh's academic journey took an unexpected turn midway through her doctoral studies. Returning to her lifelong passion for astrophysics—a fascination that began at a young age—Mehrnoosh refocused her research on observing and understanding the cosmos, employing unique interdisciplinary approaches to study cosmic magnetism.

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 astrophysics' most compelling mysteries. To answer this question, we focus on a crucial, yet often overlooked player: magnetic fields. However, observing magnetic fields is not an easy task. In this talk, Dr. Mehrnoosh Tahani will discuss how novel methods of observing and studying magnetic fields are reshaping our understanding of how galaxies evolve to form stars, shedding light on the mysteries of magnetic galaxies.Mehrnoosh Tahani focuses on finding innovative ways to observe and study cosmic and interstellar magnetic fields. As a Banting Fellow, sponsored by Canada with the privilege of choosing any eligible university worldwide, she selected Stanford University, where she also holds a Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) Fellowship. Previously, Mehrnoosh was a Research Associate (Covington Fellow) at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory with the National Research Council Canada. She obtained her PhD from the University of Calgary, having moved to Canada for graduate studies after completing her undergraduate degree at Sharif University in Tehran. Initially drawn to particle physics during her time at Sharif, Mehrnoosh's academic journey took an unexpected turn midway through her doctoral studies. Returning to her lifelong passion for astrophysics—a fascination that began at a young age—Mehrnoosh refocused her research on observing and understanding the cosmos, employing unique interdisciplinary approaches to study cosmic magnetism.

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 the Qajar period, marking an early inclination towards poetry advocating for societal change. While these poems may not encapsulate modern notions of societal progression and freedom, they serve as precursors to the groundbreaking poetry of the 1905–1911 Iranian Constitutional Revolution. The socio-political poetry preceding the revolution, regardless of its stance on prevailing crises, laid the groundwork for subsequent generations' commitment to social issues. However, the primary concern of this talk is to show how these committed poems contributed to a trend of modernization and reformulation of poetic forms in Persian poetry."The Rebellion of Forms in Modern Persian Poetry" focuses on selected poems chosen for their ability to exemplify significant experimental tendencies within pioneering movements and from individual poets across various periods. By analyzing both the formal and thematic dimensions of these poems, the book offers a fresh perspective on the narrative of modern Persian poetry, elucidating the interplay between radical aesthetic innovations in poetic practice and resistance against political and cultural hegemony within society.Farshad Sonboldel is the World History and Cultures Librarian at the University of California, San Diego. He earned his Ph.D. in Modern Languages from the University of St. Andrews in the UK, following a Master’s in Persian Language and Literature from the University of Tehran, Iran. In addition to his academic research background and publications in English, he is an award-winning poet, literary critic, and researcher in Persian literature.He has published four books in Persian, including two collections of poems titled "Metropolis" (2015) and "She'r-e Boland-e Sharayet" (2019), a research monograph titled "Gozaresh-e Nahib-e Jonbesh-e Adabi-e Shahin: Tondar Kia" (2016) discussing the works of an avant-garde Persian poet from the first half of the twentieth century, and an edited volume on current trends in literary criticism in Persian literature titled "Naqd-e Irad." His recently published book, "The Rebellion of Forms in Modern Persian Poetry: Politics of Poetic Experimentation" (Bloomsbury Academic), explores the evolution of poetic forms in modern Persian poetry. Sonboldel is also the editor of MELA Notes, the journal of the Middle East Librarians' Association and the Deputy Editor for Iranian Studies Journal.

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 Britain are bracing for battle over the continued British monopoly of Iran's oil. Twenty-nine-year-old Ebrahim Golestan, who was to become a towering figure in Iranian cinema and literature, encounters Dylan Thomas, the famous Welsh poet, who died two years later at the age of thirty-nine from bronchial disease and pneumonia. More for his celebrity than an intimate knowledge of the subject, Thomas had been sent to Iran by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to write a script for a propaganda film about the company's supposedly salutary role in the country. But for a few hours, Golestan and Thomas pause amidst the escalating standoff between their two countries and speak candidly about poetry, history, philosophy, and the perils of translation.Published here for the first time is the English translation (with facing pages in the original Persian) of Golestan's unflinching portrayal of that encounter, revealing, all too clearly, how unsuited Thomas was for the task in hand.Accompanying this is an account of Thomas's time in Iran, written by Abbas Milani, together with Alina Utrata, then a Ph.D. candidate and Gates Cambridge scholar. Based on the poet's letters, journals, and archival material in England and Wales, it helps to shed further light on an episode long shrouded in mystery and plagued by controversy.The publication coincided with the hundredth birthday of Ebrahim Golestan. To mark the occasion, Dr. Milani included a personal introductory essay on Golestan's life and work, examining his pioneering approach to film and his important contribution to Iranian literature, despite living in exile for most of his adult life.More info about the book: https://magepublishers.com/an-encounter-with-dylan-thomas/Ebrahim Golestan was a towering Iranian filmmaker and literary figure. Born in Iran in 1922, he founded his own film studio, Golestan Films, and created documentary films as well as the feature films Brick and Mirror and The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jinn Valley. He was close with the eminent Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad until her death in 1958 and produced her film The House is Black. In 1975, he left Iran for the United Kingdom and continued his literary work in exile.Dr. Abbas Milani is the Director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University, an Adjunct Professor, and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Milani is the author of numerous books in Persian and English. Most recently, he published 30 Portraits (Persian Circle). Milani has also translated numerous books and articles into Persian and English. He has published more than 250 essays and book reviews in journals and papers.Dr. Alina Utrata is a Career Development Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford University. She recently completed her PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge as a 2020 Gates-Cambridge, where her research focused on the political theory of corporations. She received her MA in Conflict Transformation and Social Justice from Queen’s University Belfast as a 2017 Marshall Scholar and her BA in History from Stanford University in 2017. Her work has appeared in the American Political Science Review and the Boston Review.Event is part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.

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 heroes. The film marks Beyzaie’s most explicit engagement with “the Iranian imaginal,” where the religious and secular heroes of the past await to be conjured to act as role-models and guides of the present. Rather than glorifying the ideal heroes of hegemonic masculinity, however, the film suggests that these heroes were victims of a violent culture of brother-killing and craved to have a normal life of hard work, prosperity, and fertility.In this talk, Professor Saeed Talajooy traces the origins, formation, rise, and the transformations of female protagonists from Beyzaie’s early plays to Ballad of Tārā in three periods. In the first stage, as reflected in his Puppet Trilogy, Beyzaie reformulates the image of the Girl or Negār in Iranian puppet plays to create a dynamic woman who no longer wants to be a damsel in distress. In the second stage, which occurs in his 1966 play The Snake King, he reformulates the folktale of ‘Mehrin Negār and the Snake King’ to celebrate female heroism in a quest of retrieval. Thus, Mehrin Negār, who embodies fertility and perseverance travels to the land of demons to reclaim her beloved husband who is released from his snake mask of toxic masculinity to become a hero of prosperity and even democracy. In the final stage which occurs in The Crow (1977) and more importantly Ballad of Tārā (1979), Beyzaie creates his ultimate heroine, a savior/trickster who represents the ideals of modernity and citizenship by embarking on a journey to the past or the underworld to reclaim a marginalized sense of being. In The Snake King, there is still a male hero, but he is brought back to life because the heroine risks her life for him. In Ballad of Tārā, however, the final episode marks the return of the hero of the underworld in a process that enables Tārā to rise as an ideal questioning heroine and citizen.Saeed Talajooy is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Persian at the University of St Andrews, UK. Dr. Talajooy has taught English and comparative literature and Persian literature, theatre and cinema in Iran and the United Kingdom. His research is on the reflections of the changing patterns of Iranian identity in Persian literature and Iranian cinema and theatre. His most recent publications include a monograph entitled Iranian Culture in Bahram Beyzaie’s Cinema in Theatre: Paradigms of Being and Belonging (I. B. Tauris, 2023), an edited volume entitled The Plays and Films of Bahram Beyzaie: Origins, Forms and Functions (I. B. Tauris, 2024), and two books which in each case include a translation of a play by Bahram Beyzaie and its analysis: The One Thousand and First Night and Afra or the Day Is Passing.Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/initiatives/stanford-festival-iranian-arts

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 interfaces that can address this challenge. These neurotechnologies can help restore lost motor and emotional function in millions of patients with disabling neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders such as major depression.Maryam Shanechi is Dean’s Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). She is also Founding Director of the newly established USC Center for Neurotechnology. She received her B.A.Sc. degree in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto, her S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, and her postdoctoral training in Neural Engineering and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and UC Berkeley. She conducts research at the intersection of engineering, computation, and neuroscience to develop closed-loop neurotechnology through decoding and control of neural dynamics. She is the recipient of several awards including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, NSF CAREER Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, ASEE’s Curtis W. McGraw Research Award, MIT Technology Review’s Top 35 Innovators Under 35, Popular Science Brilliant 10, Science News SN10, One Mind Rising Star Award, and a DoD Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Award. She is a Fellow of the IEEE and was named a 2023 Blavatnik National Awards Finalist.About the Christine Mona Khademi Lecture: The "Christine Mona Khademi Lecture" has been made possible through a generous gift from Monib Khademi, MBA '90, to the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University. In memory of Christine, B.S. '12, the lecture seeks to support and highlight the work of women in particular who are making substantial contributions to Iranian culture and society in the fields of politics, science, technology, public service, art, or culture. We are also grateful to Mr. Khademi for his ongoing support of academic programming promoting peace and democracy in Iran and around the world. Christine Mona Khademi (1989-2013) graduated from Stanford with a B.S. in biology with honors in 2012. Monib Khademi earned his B.S. from MIT in 1969 and founded the first computer science college in Tehran, Iran in 1973. He earned his MBA from Stanford in 1990 and is the parent of three Stanford graduates. Monib is the founder of Cypress Praxis and has been managing it since 1992.00:00-02:26: Introduction02:27-06:00: Monib Khademi Welcome06:03-39:00 Dr. Maryam Shanechi lecture

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 first performance when he was only nine, on a program on Kermanshah Radio. In the early 1970s, he traveled to Tehran and studied vocal techniques under renowned masters like Nur Ali Borumand, Abdullah Davami, and Mahmoud Karimi. At the same time, he completed his studies at the Music Conservatory.During this time, Nazeri also learned the techniques of playing the Setar from Master Ahmad Ebadi. He won the top prize in the konkoor nation-wide entrance exam in the category of avaz, where the jury was comprised of prominent masters of music and chaired by the renowned poet, Houshang Ebtehaj. His performance at the Tus Festival in 1975, accompanied by Master Bahari, heralded the advent of a unique fresh voice for music lovers in Iran and around the world. In 1976, he joined the National Radio and Television of Iran and gave his first performance on television.Even in the limited video recordings of Nazeri's performances from the period, his persistent inclination for innovation, and his continued eagerness to explore new vocal styles can unmistakably be seen. He was a young artist well-versed in traditional vocal styles but eager to discover new melodies and spaces, drawing inspiration from Kurdish and other Iranian ethnic musical traditions. His efforts also offered a new lofty place for Rumi's poetry in Iranian music, until then surprisingly all but ignored in the realm of music but strongly present in other domains of Iranian culture. With his voice, he pioneered a fervent and revolutionary atmosphere around such Rumi themes as love and the hundred-leaved rose. Nazeri's voice played a significant role in furthering Rumi's recognition worldwide. Some have even dubbed him "Rumi's Larynx."The rising popularity of traditional instruments such as the Tanbur, Setar, and Daf among youth and society in Iran today can, in no small measure, be attributed to the influence of his works. In 2007, he was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government for his important work introducing Rumi to the world through music.His insatiable curiosities and affinities have led him to work with some of Iran’s and the world’s foremost composers, conductors, and ensembles. He is himself a composer of great acclaim and accomplishments. His mastery of Persian poetry has led to his uniquely rich and varied compositions and performances of pieces inspired by Iran’s grand epic Shahnameh. In his mastery of the Shahnameh, and deep immersion in the poetry of Rumi, he has had the unique role of bridging the heights of Iranian epic and mystical traditions. He has been no less a creative pioneer in using masterpieces of modernist Persian poetry from poets like Nima and Akhavan to create pieces that brilliantly bridge tradition and modernity in Iran.From all these many cultural sources and inspirations, he has fashioned for himself a unique voice at once unmistakably local but also delightfully global, epic and mystic, grand in power, sophisticated in detail, humble and defiant but always assertively committed to the dignity and redemptive power of music.ABOUT THE BITA PRIZE FOR PERSIAN ARTS:The annual Bita Prize for Persian Arts is awarded by the Stanford Iranian Studies Program to an artist of Iranian ancestry whose work, in the course of their lifetime, has exhibited singular achievements in both the realm of aesthetics and in the essence of defending the rights of artists to create, free from any fetters. The recipient is invited to Stanford University to give a public lecture and receive the prize. Since its inception in 2008, the Bita Prize has been awarded to outstanding Iranian scholars, artists and creators.

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 raised in Isfahan, Iran, and is the executive chef and owner of the critically acclaimed Iranian restaurant Sofreh in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of Sofreh: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Persian Cuisine (Penguin Random House, 2023). In 2023, Nasim was named a James Beard Foundation Finalist for Best Chef: New York State, and was invited to cook for President Biden, the First Lady, and their guests at a special Nowruz reception at the White House.Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/initiatives/stanford-festival-iranian-arts

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 mystical traditions.Born in Tehran, Mahasti Afshar (Ziai) earned a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indo-European folklore and mythology at Harvard in 1988; her dissertation was titled “The Immortal Hound: Genesis and Transformation of a Symbol in Indo-Iranian Traditions.” In 1989, she joined the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles where she produced video documentaries, books, and museum exhibitions around the world on humanity’s cultural heritage.

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; Senior Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute. In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His publications include Modern Iran since 1797 (3rd updated Edition, Taylor and Francis, London, 2019), Iran, Islam & Democracy: The Politics of Managing Change (3rd updated Edition, Gingko, London, 2019); These Islands: A Letter to Britain (Haus Curiosities, 2018), Iran: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2014), The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran (CUP, 2012); Iran Under Ahmadinejad (Adelphi Paper, IISS, January 2008), Confronting Iran: The Failure of US Policy and the Roots of Mistrust (Hurst, London, 2006).

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, Life, Freedom uprising. His mourning mother posted her slain son’s video online. It went viral. Rainbow flags were waved at his funeral. A rainbow adorns his tombstone.The semiotics of the rainbow are rich in Iranian religions, literature, and arts. Often, like its occurrence in nature, a rainbow appears at the intersection of opposites—sunshine and raindrops; life and death; beginnings and endings. For the purposes of this presentation, Dr. Farzaneh Milani uses the rainbow as a metaphor for a bridge. She will focus on how this metaphor illuminates and is illuminated by the specific story of Iranian writers and poets at this incisive turning point in Iranian literature.Farzaneh Milani is Raymond J. Nelson Professor of Iranian literature and Gender Studies at the University of Virginia. She has published several articles and books, most recently The Literary Biography of Forugh Farrokhzad and Unpublished Letters. Milani is currently working on a book project tentatively titled, “Iranian Writers at the Threshold of the Local and the Global.”

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 to spotlight the role men as gendered subjects played in Iranian history.It shows how men under the reign of Reza Shah dressed, acted, spoke, and thought differently from their late Qajar period counterparts. Furthermore, it highlights how the notion of being a "proper Iranian man" changed over these decades. Demonstrating how an emerging elite of western-educated men constructed and promoted a new model of masculinity as part of their struggle for political, social, and cultural hegemony, Dr. Balslev shows how this new model reflects wider developments in Iranian society at the time including the rise of Iranian nationalism and the country's modernisation process.Sivan Balslev is a historian of modern Iran, focusing on the cultural and social history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Her fields of interest include gender, sexuality, childhood studies, and everyday life. Her current project, funded by the Israel Science Foundation, focuses on the history of children and childhood in Iran, circa 1870-1970. Since 2018, Dr. Balslev has been a lecturer (assistant professor) at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Iranian Masculinities: Gender and Sexuality in Late Qajar and Early Pahlavi Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2019) is her revised dissertation. The book offers the first study of the emergence of a new model of hegemonic masculinity in Iran. In addition to Iranian Masculinities, she published two translations to Hebrew from the work of Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad: Another Birth and Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season.

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 imagery of classical Persian poetry and wrote about sex and desire from the perspective of women. After publishing four collections of poetry (Asir, Divār, ‘Osiyān, Tavallodi digar) and working on a number of short films and documentaries, she received international acclaim at film festivals in Germany and Italy. It was only after Farrokhzad’s untimely death and, most notably, following the publication of her posthumous poetry collection (Let’s Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season, 1974), that her voice gained global recognition, thanks to the contributions of scholars and translators from around the world. Until recently, due to censorship and editorial misunderstandings, no reliable editions of Forugh Farrokhzad’s collected works were available on the market.Dr. Ingenito’s new book features the Persian text of all the original collections of poetry published by Farrokhzad during her lifetime, along with pieces published posthumously, verses co-authored with Yadollah Roya’i, lines extracted from the film Khāne siyāh ast, as well as Farrokhzad’s proto-feminist afterword to Asir (1955). This edition includes a literary biography of Farrokhzad’s life and works as well an annotated critical study that traces the editorial development of Farrokhzad’s poetry collections until the time of her death.Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.

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 H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Kashani-Sabet received her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead Scholar. She completed her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in history at Yale University. Dr. Kashani-Sabet directed the Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania as a National Resource Center from 2006–2019. In 2006, she launched the Modern Middle Eastern Studies (MMES) undergraduate program and served as advisor to the major and minor program until 2019.