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Iranian Studies
International Horizons November 6, 2023

Hamas, Iran and Israel

The Perils of Overreaction

Colin Clarke

Hosted by International Horizons
In this episode of International Horizons, Colin Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Center, discusses the possible trajectories of the Israel-Palestine conflict with RBI director John Torpey. Clarke introduces …

Iranian Studies

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Interviews with authors about their new books in Iranian and Persian studies.

Indian Ocean World October 29, 2023

Persian and Arabic Literary Communities in the Seventeenth Century

Migrant Poets between Arabia, Iran and India

James White

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
A wealth of scholarship has highlighted how commercial, political and religious networks expanded across the Arabian Sea during the seventeenth century, as merchants from South Asia traded goods in the …
Art October 4, 2023

The Cultural Politics of Art in Iran

Modernism, Exhibitions, and Art Production

Katrin Nahidi

Hosted by Kaveh Rafie
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Modernist Iranian art represents a highly diverse field of cultural production deeply involved in discussing questions of modernity and modernization as practiced in Iran. This book investigates how artistic production …
Indian Ocean World September 27, 2023

The Medieval Persian Gulf

Brian Ulrich

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
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The Persian Gulf today is home to multiple cosmopolitan urban hubs of globalization. This did not start with the discovery of oil. The Medieval Persian Gulf (ARC Humanities Press, 2023) …
Asian Review of Books September 14, 2023

Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther

Achaemenid Court Culture in the Hebrew Bible

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The Book of Esther, one of the historical books in the Torah and the Old Testament, is known as a story of community, discrimination, and human ingenuity. It’s core to …
Middle Eastern Studies September 12, 2023

Inventing the Middle East

Britain and the Persian Gulf in the Age of Global Imperialism

Guillemette Crouzet

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
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The “Middle East” has long been an indispensable and ubiquitous term in discussing world affairs, yet its history remains curiously underexplored. Few question the origin of the term or the …
Middle Eastern Studies September 10, 2023

The East India Company in Persia

Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Eighteenth Century

Peter Good

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
In 1747, the city of Kerman in Persia burned amidst chaos, destruction and death perpetrated by the city's own overlord, Nader Shah. After the violent overthrow of the Safavid dynasty …
Art August 30, 2023

The Art of Iran in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Tracing the Modern and the Contemporary

Hamid Keshmirshekan

Hosted by Kaveh Rafie
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Hamid Keshmirshekan's book The Art of Iran in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Tracing the Modern and the Contemporary (Edinburgh UP, 2023) deals with the exploration and theorization of Modern and Contemporary …
Anthropology July 26, 2023

Sexual Self-Fashioning

Iranian Dutch Narratives of Sexuality and Belonging

Rahil Roodsaz

Hosted by Armanc Yildiz
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Sexuality and gender have come to serve as measures for cultural belonging in discussions of the position of Muslim immigrants in multicultural Western societies. While the acceptance of assumed local …
Middle Eastern Studies May 6, 2023

Iranian Literature After the Islamic Revolution

Production and Circulation in Iran and the World

Laetitia Nanquette

Hosted by Connor Christensen
In Iranian Literature After the Islamic Revolution: Production and Circulation in Iran and the World (Edinburgh UP, 2021), Dr. Laetitia Nanquette explores how Iranian literature has functioned and circulated from …
Madison's Notes April 20, 2023

Imprisoned in Iran

A Conversation with Wang Xiyue

Wang Xiyue

Hosted by Annika Nordquist
For 40 months, Wang Xiyue was imprisoned in Iran on false charges of espionage. A doctoral candidate in history at Princeton University, Wang Xiyue joins the show to discuss his …
Indian Ocean World April 16, 2023

The Making of Persianate Modernity

Language and Literary History between Iran and India

Alexander Jabbari

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
Alexander Jabbari’s The Making of Persianate Modernity: Language and Literary History between Iran and India (Cambridge University Press, 2023) narrates the cultural and literary history of one of the world's …
Architecture March 8, 2023

Development, Architecture, and the Formation of Heritage in Late Twentieth-Century Iran

A Vital Past

Ali Mozaffari and Nigel Westbrook

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Development, Architecture, and the Formation of Heritage in Late Twentieth-Century Iran (Manchester UP, 2020) analyses the use of the past and the production of heritage through architectural design in the …
Islamic Studies March 3, 2023

Unknowing and the Everyday

Sufism and Knowledge in Iran

Seema Golestaneh

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In her new ethnographic study Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran (Duke University Press, 2023), Seema Golestaneh guides her readers through processes and praxes of mystical experience and …
Diplomatic History January 31, 2023

Petroleum and Progress in Iran

Oil, Development, and the Cold War

Greg Brew

Hosted by Grant Golub
From the 1940s to 1960s, Iran developed into the world's first “petro-state,” where oil represented the bulk of state revenue and supported an industrializing economy, expanding middle class, and powerful …
Diplomatic History January 28, 2023

The Struggle for Iran

Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951-1954

David S. Painter and Gregory Brew

Hosted by Grant Golub
Beginning with the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry in spring 1951 and ending with its reversal following the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in August 1953, the Iranian …
International Horizons January 23, 2023

Contextualizing the Iranian Protests

The Role of Women in Leading the Change

Mahnaz Afkhami and Kelly Shannon

Hosted by International Horizons
Western sanctions have slowed Iran's economy, causing protests against the absence of freedom and opportunities -- teachers their lack of pay; farmers their lack of water; retirees their fear of …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones January 4, 2023

The Future of Iranian Resistance

A Discussion with Azadeh Moaveni

Azadeh Moaveni

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
How strong is the Iranian resistance? And which parts of society does that resistance come from? Are there any parallels with resistance that brought down the Shah of Iran in …
Art December 22, 2022

Alternative Iran

Contemporary Art and Critical Spatial Practice

Pamela Karimi

Hosted by Kaveh Rafie
Alternative Iran offers a unique contribution to the field of contemporary art, investigating how Iranian artists engage with space and site amid the pressures of the art market and the …
International Horizons December 5, 2022

Protests in Iran

Maybe not the Tocqueville Paradox

Ali Ansari

Hosted by International Horizons
In mid-September of this year, a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died under suspicious circumstances after her arrest by the morality police for improperly covering her hair. Her death …