Alex Shams, Author at Ajam Media Collective

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Iran’s A Separation Wins Big at Golden Globes [and the Oscars!]

Posted on January 16, 2012January 17, 2017
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byAlex Shams

Last night at the Golden Globe Awards, Iran’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film, “A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)” took home the coveted prize. The film has been generating buzz…

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Tehran from 435 Meters: The View from Geisha

Posted on December 27, 2011January 16, 2017
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byAlex Shams

Tehran is a city defined by a distinctly Islamic modernity. Although some have said it is not an “interesting” city (as Asef Bayat does in his brilliant article on the…

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Patriarchy & Islamism between Tehran and Cairo

Posted on December 19, 2011January 17, 2017
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byAlex Shams

The newest viral sensation in the Egyptian blogosphere is a video purporting to be a message from the “Women of Iran” directed towards the “Women of Egypt and Tunisia,” exhorting…

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Afghanistan: Touch Down in Flight + Dancing American Soldiers

Posted on December 10, 2011January 17, 2017
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byAlex Shams

Some years ago a cousin of mine went to Afghanistan for work. His company (a shoe manufacturer) was expanding its operations into a new mall being set up in Kabul…

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Memory and Public Space in Tehran

Posted on December 5, 2011January 16, 2017
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byAlex Shams

Tehran is a city infused with politics. Every other street is named after a martyr of the Iran-Iraq war, and the most recent street signs include the word “martyr” in…

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Arash, Melody, & Transnational Youth Identity

Posted on December 2, 2011January 17, 2017
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byAlex Shams

Transnational Iranian youth identity today has rather tenuous bonds, a fact lamented by elders who point to language, religion, or various other arbitrary markers of communitarian affiliation to re-affirm their…

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