Comments (0)

By ameenayovan, January 25, 2014 9:10 am

Thank you for coming to Barbara Scharres’ talk! We did not record the Circle, but below I am attaching trailers to some of the movies that were mentioned. In addition, I recommend that you visit the Festival of Films From Iran for more great films to see.

Some trailers:

Manuscripts Don’t Burn, Mohammad Rasoulof (2013)

Closed Curtain, Jafar Panahi and Kambozia Partovi

This Is Not A Film, Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (2011)

Dog Sweat, Hossein Keshavarz (2010)

Circumstance, Maryam Keshavarz (2011)

Fish & Cat, Shahram Mokri (2013)

Fat Shaker, Mohammad Shirvani (2013)

A Cinema of Discontent, Jamsheed Akrami (2013)

Comments (0)

By ameenayovan, January 19, 2014 9:26 pm

The Persian Circle presents
انجمن سخن در دانشگاه شیکاگو تقدیم می کند

Barbara Scharres
Director of Programming, Gene Siskel Film Center

Trends and Challenges in Iranian Cinema

Wednesday, 5:30pm
Pick 222 / 5828 South University Avenue

Barbara Scharres is the Director of Programming at the Gene Siskel Film Center, a public program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In this capacity she is the artistic director for one of the largest cultural exhibition programs of world cinema in North America. She has published articles and criticism in film magazines and journals including American Cinematographer, Film Comment, Chicago Reader, Variety, and the Chicago Sun-Times, and has contributed to books including Hong Kong Babylon, edited by Fred Dannen. In addition to receiving numerous awards and honors, she has been instrumental in coordinating the Festival of Films from Iran, a ground-breaking event now in its 24th year. The festival this year will run February 7–28, and you can see the full lineup of films at the following link: http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/iran2014

Note that we will be starting at 5:30 and not 5:00, but there will be tea and possibly cookies to keep up your caffeine and blood sugar levels. The talk will be in English. Hope to see you there!

به امید دیدار
کامران

Comments (0)

By ameenayovan, January 16, 2014 7:10 pm

For those of you who were unable to attend Prof. Lincoln’s talk, here is the audio of our circle. You can listen to it using the embedded player or download the MP3 here.

Comments (0)

By ameenayovan, January 14, 2014 7:40 pm

Dear all,

We did not record the Persian Circle last week, but in content it was very similar to a talk she had given at Georgia College, and with her kind permission we have posted the link for you to view. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/bQBYqURaaLo

Comments (0)

By ameenayovan, January 13, 2014 11:28 am

The Persian Circle presents
انجمن سخن در دانشگاه شیکاگو تقدیم می کند

Prof. Bruce Lincoln
Dept. History of Religions, University of Chicago

From Ritual Practice to Esoteric Knowledge: The Problem of the Magi

Wednesday, 5:00–6:30pm
Pick 222
5828 South University Avenue

Bruce Lincoln emphasizes critical approaches to the study of religion. He is particularly interested in issues of discourse, practice, power, conflict, and the violent reconstruction of social borders. His research tends to focus on the religions of pre-Christian Europe and pre-Islamic Iran, but he has a notoriously short attention span and has also written on a bewildering variety of topics, including Guatemalan curanderismo, Lakota sun dances, Melanesian funerary rituals, Swazi kingship, the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre, Marco Polo, professional wrestling, Persian imperialism, the theology of George W. Bush, and comparative demonology. His most recent publications include Between History and Myth: Stories of Harald ‘Fairhair’ and the Founding of the State (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2013), “Happiness for Mankind”: Achaemenian Religion and the Imperial Project (Louvain: Peeters, 2012), Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars: Critical Explorations in the History of Religions (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2012), Religion, Empire, and Torture. The Case of Achaemenian Persia (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2007). The latter was awarded the Frank Moore Cross Award for the most substantial volume related to ancient Near Eastern and eastern Mediterranean epigraphy, text and/or tradition as the result of original research published during the past two years by the American Society of Oriental Research.

به امید دیدار
کامران

Comments (0)

By ameenayovan, January 6, 2014 9:05 pm

The Persian Circle presents
انجمن سخن در دانشگاه شیکاگو تقدیم می کند

Prof. Claudia Yaghoobi / استاد کلودیا یعقوبی
Georgia College & State University

What It Means To Be a Woman In Modern Iran
زن بودن در ایران معاصر

Friday, 4:00–5:30pm
Pick 218
5828 South University Avenue

Claudia Yaghoobi was born in Tehran in 1974. She graduated from Islamic Azad University with a Master’s degree in English Language and Literature. She taught as an ESL instructor in most language schools in Tehran for 15 years and as an Assistant Professor of English Literature in Islamic Azad University for 9 years. Claudia arrived in Los Angeles in 2006, where she obtained a Master’s degree in English at California State University of Los Angeles. She received her doctoral degree in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2013. Her dissertation, “Submission versus Transgression: Farīd al-Dīn ʿAttār Nishāpūrī’s Embrace of Diversity in Tadhkirat al-Awliya, Ilāhī-nāma, Musībat-nāma and Mantiq al-Tayr,” was nominated for the Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award. In the fall of 2013, she joined Georgia College & State University as an Assistant Professor of English. Her research interests include English and Persian Medieval Mystical/Sufi Literature, Modern Middle Eastern women’s literature, the Iranian woman question, Orientalism and Post-colonialism, gender and sexuality studies. She has presented papers at a number of different conferences, some of which have been nominated for the Horst Frenz Prize and the Jafar and Shokoh Farzaneh Paper Prize. She is a native speaker of Armenian and Persian. For more information, you can visit her website at http://claudiayaghoobi.com/.

Please note the unusual time & date! We’ll be convening right after the Arabic Circle in 218. Look forward to seeing you!

به امید دیدار
کامران

Comments (0)

By ameenayovan, January 3, 2014 2:03 pm

Dear all,

Happy new year and welcome back for another quarter of the Persian Circle! Please take note of our upcoming events:

• Fri. Jan. 10, 4:00–5:30 (Pick 218): Claudia Yaghoobi — “What It Means To Be a Woman In Modern Iran / زن بودن در ایران معاصر”
  • Note the unusual time, date, and location!
• Wed. Jan. 15, 5:00–6:30 (Pick 222): Bruce Lincoln — “From Ritual Practice to Esoteric Knowledge: The Problem of the Magi” (in English)
• Wed. Jan. 22, 5:30–6:30 (Pick 222): Barbara Scharres — “Trends and Challenges in Iranian Cinema” (in English)
  • Note that we will start a half-hour later than usual.

Individual announcements for each speaker will follow in due course. Looking forward to seeing you all!

Comments (0)

By ameenayovan, November 30, 2013 10:39 pm

The Persian Circle presents
انجمن سخن در دانشگاه شیکاگو تقدیم می کند

Prof. Alireza Doostdar
Univ. of Chicago
استاد علیرضا دوستدار
دانشگاه شیکاگو

Politics, Intimacy, and Social Networks in Iran
سیاست، صمیمیت، و شبکه های اجتماعی در ایران

Wed. Dec. 4, 5:00–6:30pm
Pick 222 / 5828 South University Avenue

Alireza Doostdar teaches courses on the anthropology of religion, contemporary Shi‘ism, and modern Iranian religious history. His first book project, tentatively titled “Taming Wonder: Science, Doubt, and the Supernatural in Iran” explores the ways in which both secular and Islamist modernists have harnessed wonder – as an emotional and cognitive state – in the service of popularizing and sustaining their visions of social and cultural change. His research has focused on discursive productions of superstition, scientific imaginations of the supernatural, and the productivity of ambivalence and doubt in middle class religious subjectivities. His other interests include Islamic “spiritual” cinema, hagiographies of contemporary Shi‘i mystics, online occultist networks, and philosophical debates over the Islamization of the sciences in Iran.

به امید دیدار
کامران

Comments (0)

By ameenayovan, November 30, 2013 10:31 pm

Avisheh Mohsenin gave a wonderful presentation about Pasfarda and its latest activities. For full details, please see the attached PDF she has created for us. You can also download her talk by clicking on this link or by using the player below.

If you want to join the Pasfarda email list to be updated on future events, you can fill out the form in at the following URL: http://www.pasfarda.com/Contact.aspx or email them at contact@pasfarda.com.

Comments (0)

By ameenayovan, November 18, 2013 9:28 am

The Persian Circle presents
انجمن سخن در دانشگاه شیکاگو تقدیم می کند

Avisheh Mohsenin
آویشه محسنین

Pasfarda: Peace and dialogue through the arts
پسفردا: صلح و گفتگو توسط هنر

Wed. Nov. 20, 5:30–6:30pm (note the change in time!)
Pick 222 / 5828 South University Avenue

Come early for tea and cookies!

​​Avisheh Mohsenin was born in France and moved to Iran as a child, where she grew up and attended university before moving to the U.S. in 1997. In the U.S. she obtained a Masters in Economics and started her art career by taking classes and experimenting with various mediums. Avisheh’s work has moved from photographic compositions to sculptural mixed media pieces involving found objects, hand-fatigued magazine cutouts, light-boxes, and image making using acrylic, pencil, and collages. She is the co-founder of LUMO Films, a company dedicated in the production of the arts and is the co-director of “Someplace Else” (2008), a documentary film on a Chicago blues artist. She is also the co-founder and current president of Pasfarda Arts & Cultural Exchange, a non-profit organization based in Chicago and dedicated to promoting peace through the arts.

به امید دیدار
کامران