If you missed Saeed’s Talk, you can listen (or download) it here.
Please join us on Tuesday, February 9th, for a Persian Circle talk with Dr. Saeed Ghahremani (NELC, University of Chicago). This talk will be in Persian, and all are invited to attend:
Modern Ghazal Testing Untrodden Grounds / راهی که “غزل نو” پیموده است
with Saeed Ghahremani / سعید قهرمانی
Tuesday, February 9, 4:30 pm
Farouk Mustafa Memorial Seminar Room (Pick 218)
5828 S. University Ave.
Chicago, IL 60637
Please join us on Tuesday, January 26th for a talk with Mateo Farzaneh / متئو فرزانه based on his new book The Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Clerical Leadership of Khurasani:
Shiite Clerics and Political Modernization in Iran / علمای شیعه و تجدد سیاسی در ایران
In this book presentation, Prof. Farzaneh will discuss the role of Islamic jurisprudence in political reform in Iran. Throughout the 1800s, Iran was challenged to politically modernize in order to undo the failed policies of its corrupt/absolutist monarchical system. Introduction of Western-style constitutionalism by secular Iranians brought about the establishment of the Islamic world’s first parliament in Iran in 1906. However, that was the beginning of a long struggle between the proponents and the opponents of rule of law as a new political reality. Mullah Muhammad Kazim Khurasani led a group of high-ranking Iranian Shiite clerics living in Iraq and began a transnational clerical movement in support of constitutionalism with the objective to sever the political influence of Muslim clerics and leaving “modern” politics to the elected parliamentarians. This talk is based on Prof. Farzaneh’s new book, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Clerical Leadership of Khurasani (Syracuse University Press, 2015).
Tuesday, January 26th, 4:30 pm
Farouk Mustafa Seminar Room (Pick #218)
5828 S. University Ave.
Chicago, IL 60637
Understanding the Confluence of Diasporic Iranian Women’s Heterogeneous Identities
فهم تلاقی هویت های اجتماعی ناهمگون زنان ایرانی در دیاسپورا
January 12th, 4:30 pm
Farouk Mustafa Memorial Seminar Room
Pick Hall, #218
5828 S. University Ave.
Chicago, IL 60637
In this talk, I intend to problematize the hegemonic discourse on diasporic Iranian women prevalent in host societies and the Iranian literature and media in diaspora. This discourse depicts Iranian women as a relatively homogenous group with similar aspirations. In this discourse the Iranian women’s heterogeneity and the intersections of their socio-cultural, ethnic, class, gender, racial and other variegated identities, and lived experiences of discrimination are thus elided.
هدف من در این گفتار به چالش کشیدن گفتمان غالب ومسلط دراکثر جوامع میزبان ودر ادبیات مهاجرت و رسانه های دیاسپورای ایرانیدرمورد زنان ایرانی دردیاسپوراست که آنان را همچنان به عنوان یک گروه نسبتا متجانس و همگون با آمال و آرزوهایی مشابه به تصویرمی کشد و پیچیدگی، تلاقی و در هم تنیدگی هویت ها ولاجرم تبعیض های اجتماعی، فرهنگی، طبقاتی، قومی، جنسیتی و غیرهی آنان را نادیده می گیرد.
Please join us on Dec. 1st for a talk (in Persian) with special guest Sohila Saremi of Saddleback University. A scholar or Persian language and literature, in addition to many other publications she has written Mystical Terms and Prominent Concepts in ʿAṭṭâr’s Speech (in Persian), an incredibly useful analytic concordance. Hope to see you all there!
Attar, the Unhealed Healer عطار، طبیب بیمار
Sohila Saremi, Saddleback University سهیلا صارمی
Tuesday, December 1st, 430pm
Farouk Mustafa Memorial Lecture Room (Pick 218) 5828 South University Avenue Chicago, IL 60637
Please join Persian Circle on November 17th at 5:30pm (note the later time!) for a talk by Niloofar Sarlati of the University of Minnesota:
کودک و غرب در ایران: نگاهی به کانون پرورش فکری
The Child and the West in Iran: A Look at The Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (KANOON)
توجه به کودک و اوقات فراغت او اساسا پدیده ای است مدرن. مخصوصا اگر بپذیریم که قصه گویی و یا داستان های جن و پری، به مشاهده ی والتر بنیامین و رونالد جی تولکین، هرگز به لحاظ تاریخی صرفا معطوف کودکان نبوده است. در ایران هم نخستین توجه جدی به کودک در عرصه ی نشر به دوره ی مدرن و پیدایش نخستین نشریههای کودکان به دوران مشروطه بازمیگردد. از آنجا که مدرنیت را نمی توان در ایران جدا از غرب فهمید در این مقاله من به رابطه ی میان توجه به کودک در ایران و ارتباط این توجه با غرب می پردازم اما تنها از خلال نگاه به کانون پرورش فکری، نهادی که از سه دهه پیش از انقلاب با کسب جوایز بین الممللی بسیار بلند ترین صدا را در عرصه ی پرورش کودک در ایران داشته است.
Children literature and attention to children’s free time in publication is known to be a modern phenomena in the West. This is especially true if we recognize Walter Benjamin and J.R.R. Tolkien’s observation that fairytales, fairy stories, and storytelling were historically never really produced for children exclusively. Same can be said about Iran in regard to the attention to children in the publication industry. It is not until the Constitutional Movement that along with the shift of attention to political modernity, the first children magazine also published in Iran. This talk attends to this relationship between children and the West in Iran through looking at The Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, an institute which is internationally most recognized as dedicated to the “development of children” in Iran and which was established three decades before the Revolution of 1979.
November 17th, 5:30 pm Farouk Mustafa Memorial Lecture Room (Pick 218) 5828 South University Avenue Chicago, IL 60637