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By ksalib, October 31, 2013 4:43 pm

You are cordially invited to our upcoming Persian Circle:

Mehrnaz Saeedvafa
Associate Chair and Professor at Columbia College, Cinema Art + Science

will join us for a screening and discussion of her latest film,

Jerry and Me

Wednesday, Nov. 6, 5:00–6:30pm
222 Pick Hall / 5828 South University Avenue / Chicago, IL 60637

Mehrnaz Saeedvafa has been teaching as a full time faculty at the Film and Video Department of Columbia College since 1989. She has also been the Artistic Consultant of the Festival of Films from Iran, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago since 1989. Her areas of expertise are cinema studies (international cinema, Middle Eastern cinema, exilic cinema, women, gender, race in cinema), documentary film theory and production and alternative forms. She has lectured and written extensively on Iranian cinema. Her book, Abbas Kiarostami, co-written with Jonathan Rosenbaum, was published by the University of Illinois Press in March 2003. Mehrnaz is an award-winning filmmaker. Her films A Tajik Woman, Saless Far From Home, and Ruins Within have been shown in many international film festivals. Her recent film A Different Moon was shown in several European film festivals in 2009 and has been picked up for distribution by the European Spiritual Film Festival in France. Her latest film, Jerry and Me (2013), is a personal documentary film about her relationship with Jerry Lewis’s cinema.

The film is in English and runs 38 minutes. Discussion will be in Persian.

Some links to explore:

• Prof. Saeedvafa’s interview with the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Jerry and Me
• Columbia College’s The Loop‘s announcement of the film’s release
• Typecast Films’ announcement and trailer of the film
• Survival of the Unfit: On Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa’s “Jerry & Me”, by Ehsan Khoshbakht

This is a very special session and we hope to see many of you there!

به امید دیدار
کامران

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By ksalib, October 30, 2013 10:17 pm

Prof. Payne gave a fascinating talk today, and thanks to all who came! I have the recording of the session attached below; you’ll have to forgive me, I had the microphone on a little hot, so the sound is a bit distorted (especially at the beginning with my rather loud introduction) but it’s still quite listenable. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks again to our speaker!

Download MP3

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By ksalib, October 28, 2013 2:45 pm

You are cordially invited to this week’s Persian Circle:

Richard Payne

Assistant Professor at the Oriental Institute

The Saints of Mount Bisutun: Christianizing an Icon of Iranian Imperialism

Wed. Oct. 30, 5:00pm
Pick 222
5828 South University Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637

Richard Payne is a historian of the Iranian world in Late Antiquity, ca 200 – 800 CE. His research focuses primarily on the dynamics of Iranian imperialism, specifically how the Iranian (or Sasanian) Empire successfully integrated socially, culturally, and geographically disparate populations from Arabia to Afganistan into enduring poltical networks and institutions. His current book project, A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and the Making of the Iranian Empire, explores the problem of religious diversity within the empire, showing how Syriac-writing Christians could create a place for themselves in a poltical culture not of their own making. He has published articles on the role of Zoroastrian cosmology on Iranian political thought and practice as well as on the history of Christian communities after the Islamic conquests, among other topics.

After studying at Red Rocks Community College and University of Colorado at Boulder (2004 BA, Classics, summa cum laude), he completed a doctorate in history at Princeton University in 2009. He subsequently taught ancient and medieval history at the Universität Konstanz, the University of Cambridge, Mount Holyoke College, and Amherst College before coming to the University of Chicago. For his work, Richard has been awarded the Bliss Prize from Dumbarton Oaks, the Crisp Fellowship from Phi Beta Kappa, a research fellowship from the DAAD, and a visiting research scholarship from the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. He has also been elected a research fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge.

The talk will be in English, and all are encouraged to join! Hope to see you there!

به امید دیدار
کامران

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By ksalib, October 24, 2013 5:53 pm

Thanks to those of you who came to yesterday’s fascinating talk! For those of you who were unable to come, Prof. Ehsani has graciously allowed me to put up the slides and the audio recording of the session for you to enjoy here. Listen below or download the mp3.

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By ksalib, October 21, 2013 8:31 am

You are cordially invited to this week’s Persian Circle:

Kaveh Ehsani

The Oil Industry and Abadan in the 1920s

Wed. Oct. 23, 5:00pm
Pick 222
5828 South University Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637

Kaveh Ehsani is assistant professor of International Studies at DePaul University. Prior to joining DePaul University he was an associate director of the Jomhur Institute of Social Research. He is also on the editorial boards of the Goftogu Quarterly in Iran and Middle East Report (Merip) in the US, and a 2013-2014 research fellow at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. His fields of interest include urban geography, critical social theory, and the political economy of development projects and their social and environmental repercussions. He is currently completing a book entitled Oil and Society in Iran; Abadan and Urban Modernity in 20th Century (Brill Publishers).

به امید دیدار
کامران

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By ksalib, October 14, 2013 5:18 pm

You are cordially invited to a very special session of the Persian Circle:

Maryam Sepehri & Anita Alkhas

will introduce and screen their film

Thicker than Paint (Habibeh)

Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 5:00pm
Pick 222
5828 South University Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637

Maryam Sepehri was born in 1970 in Gorgan, in the north of Iran. Her family moved to Tehran when she was 17. She began her university career by studying medicine and then worked for a few years in a medical lab. After that, she returned to school to get a B.A. in film making (2010) and an M.A. in photography (2012). For many years she has made short films and taken photographs, as well as writing short stories and translating from English to Farsi.

Maryam Sepehri’s documentary film Rain Once Again (2012) won the award for best documentary film at the Sooreh International Short Film Festival, and was nominated in this category at the 28th Tehran International Short Film Festival. Her next documentary, Thicker than Paint (2013) won the Special Cream City Cinema Jury Prize at the 5th Milwaukee Film Festival. The film was produced by Prof. Anita Alkhas of the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Her photographs have been exhibited in Iran, Italy and Germany, and her short stories and travelogues (some with accompanying photographs) have been published in Iran in book and magazine form. She is now at work on her next documentary film.

This is a very special event and I hope to see you there!

به امید دیدار
کامران

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By ksalib, October 8, 2013 12:16 pm

Last week, Dr. Farrokh Asadi gave us a short introduction to his film, “Judith”, an adaptation of Brecht’s “The Jewish Wife”. You can listen to his presentation in the player below.

Download the mp3 here. Plus, you can see the Director’s notes to the film in English and in Persian.

Many thanks to Dr. Asadi for his interesting talk and beautiful film! از لطف او بسیار سپاس گذاریم.

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By ksalib, October 7, 2013 11:45 am

The Persian Circle cordially invites you to this week’s session:

JoAnn Scurlock & Richard Beal

Impressions from our recent trip to Iran:
photos and thoughts

Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 5:00pm
Pick 222

5828 South University Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637

The talk will be in English.

به امید دیدار
کامران