Ajam Media Collective
“This Place Should Have Been Iran”: Iranian Imaginings in/of Dubai
May 20, 2013
Featured Posts
Iranian-American reflections on the meaning of Nowruz, 10 years after the invasion of Iraq. May we all be inspired this year again by the rebirth and resilience of nature and of love that Nowruz signifies, and may we be reminded of the need to live freely, honorably, and bravely as the ongoing Iraqi struggle for liberation inspires us to do. Continue reading
The relationship between Israel and Iran dates back to the early years of the State of Israel. Insofar as Pahlavi Iran is concerned, even oppositional circles in the 1960s and 1970s had a complex and sometimes favorable approach to the State of Israel, including prominent thinkers like Jalal Al-e Ahmad, the author of “Westoxification.” This perception would change definitively for the negative after the 1967 war. Continue reading
The politics of language in the Russian and Soviet domains, focusing on Abdullah Tuqay’s fight to reform the Tatar language and oppose the linguistic imperialism in vogue in the early 20th century. This fight would have lasting implications for cultural production across the region. A guest post from “The Tuqay.” Continue reading
A guest post by Kamyar Jarahzadeh, a student at UC Berkeley focusing on migration and forced migration in Turkey and the Middle East. Read his earlier post on Iranian pop music. Persian art music is a major part of the Iranian musical tradition, but, often times, it seems to be the only musical tradition in the … Continue reading
Far from the tacit dismissal of handicrafts and folklore that has often characterised the modern project, Slavs and Tatars tend to see no less than the currents of history, political emancipation, and ideology in these otherwise discreet craft objects and practices. Some of these traditions – such as the mirror-mosaic – have been instrumentalized for ideological ends. Continue reading
This winter has been a particularly rough one in Tehran. For the third year in a row, air pollution has frequently reached highly unhealthy levels, and schools and other public institutions have closed for days at a time in response. Although Tehran’s air quality has been a major issue for decades, never in recent memory … Continue reading
A tribute to Ajam Media Collective’s name and inspiration, this post was written by Ajam’s editors, Alex Shams, Rustin Zarkar, and Beeta Baghoolizadeh. Photographs by Preethi Nallu originally published in Al Akhbar English, republished with author permission. Epic literature occupies a key role in formulating and maintaining cohesive national and cultural identities– elucidating the spirit … Continue reading
Jalal Sepehr’s Knot series (2011) is comprised of 12 images all including a Persian rug (1m x 70cm) taken in the historic city of Yazd in central Iran. Contrary to initial intentions, some of the images in Knot make use of the historic scenes and examples of architecture found in Yazd. In this series, Sepehr … Continue reading
