Claudia Yaghoobi on Sonia Balassanian: Writing the Impossible

The 56th episode of Parse is an excerpt of talk given by Claudia Yaghoobi which focuses on the Iranian-Armenian poet and artist Sonia Balassanian’s works, Yaghoobi argues that Balassanian treats writing (and art generally) as a medium which allows her to write the impossible, namely the 1915 Armenian Genocide. 

Claudia Yaghoobi is a Roshan Institute Associate Professor in Persian Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the author of Transnational Culture in the Iranian Armenian Diaspora  published in 2023, Temporary Marriage in Iran: Gender and Body Politics in Modern Iranian Literature and Film published in 2020, Subjectivity in ‘Attar, Persian Sufism, and European Mysticism published in 2017. 

To watch the full talk, click here: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6v0RvqJess&t=6s⁠