Rivanne Sandler is Professor Emerita at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Toronto. She is a specialist of early-20th century Iranian women’s poetry. In their vision of a revitalization of the Persian nation modeled on the flourishing countries of Europe, 19th and early 20th c. century intellectuals factored in a female […]
Bio: Dr Mahmoud Pargoo is a research fellow at Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, and the lead author of Presidential Elections in Iran: Islamic idealism since the revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and the author of Secularization of Islam in Post-revolutionary Iran (Routledge, 2021). He has a PhD in Social and Political Thought from Insitute […]
Asal Bagheri has a PhD in Semiology and Linguistics, with a specialization in Iranian cinema. She has written several articles on Iranian cinema in French, English, and Persian. Bagheri has taught Linguistics, Semiology, Communication, and French language courses in different Universities including Sorbonne Paris Descartes, Paris Est Creteil, Paris Est Marne La Vallee, Rennes 1, […]
Bio: Iraj Pezeshkzad is an Iranian writer and author of the famous Persian novel, Dear Uncle Napoleon, which was published to great acclaim in the early 1970s. Abstract: Iraj Pezeshkzad was the 2021 distinguished lecturer for the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Annual Lecture Series, held on 6 June 2021. With over 200 registered guests, Mr. […]
Bio: Homa Hoodfar is a Professor of Anthropology, Emerita, at Concordia University, Montreal. Hoodfar’s field-based research are in political economy and legal anthropology; focusing on reproductive rights; Afghan women and youth refugees in Iran and Pakistan; women in formal and informal politics; hijab and dress codes as political institutions; gender and citizenship; Muslim women’s sports […]
Dominic Parviz Brookshaw is Associate Professor of Persian Literature at the University of Oxford, and Senior Research Fellow in Persian at Wadham College. Dominic currently serves on the Editorial Board of Middle Eastern Literatures and, from 2004 to 2014, he was Assistant Editor for Iranian Studies. He is a former member of both the Board […]
Bio: Gita Hashemi has been working for over three decades in visual and performance art, digital and net art, and language-based art including live embodied writing, as well as in curation and publishing. Her multi-platform and transdisciplinary projects focus on marginalized narratives and their influence in contemporary contexts. She has received numerous project grants from […]
Hamed Goharipour is an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at the College of Wooster in Ohio. He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning at Kansas State University, where he also taught different courses. Hamed's research interests include the relationship between city and cinema, urban life and satisfaction, social justice and the city, and […]
Michelle Langford is Associate Professor in film studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Langford’s most recent research project looks at the German films of the Iranian filmmaker Sohrab Shahid Saless. Her newest book is Allegory in Iranian Cinema: The Aesthetics of Poetry and Resistance (Bloomsbury, 2019). In this talk, Langford will provide […]
Dr. Farangis Ghaderi is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Kurdish Studies at the University of Exeter and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies at Jagiellonian University, Kraków. She obtained her Ph.D. in Kurdish Studies from the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies of the University of Exeter in 2016 and […]
Hamid Naficy is a leading authority in cultural studies of diaspora, exile, and postcolonial cinemas and media, and of Iranian and Middle Eastern cinemas and media. In this lecture, Naficy discusses Iranian cinema and the way it has been used to challenge the Iranian state’s broadcasting monopoly and monovocalism. According to this conception, cinema is […]
A Public Discussion on the Installation of a Cyrus the Great Statue in Toronto. Abstract: "A significant feature of the Institute’s community activities involved the hosting “Cyrus in the 6ix” public forum, which included 24 speakers supporting the initiative to install a 10-feet bronze statue of Cyrus the Great donated to the City of […]