The Word in the Ruins
This piece was originally published on The Tuqay before it became part of Ajam Media Collective. “Poetry is the queen of language, the sovereign of the word.…
How Good Is Arash’s Persian? The Politics of Language & Identity in Diaspora Iranian Pop Music
A guest post by Kamyar Jarahzadeh, a student at UC Berkeley focusing on migration and forced migration in Turkey and the Middle East. Like the modern music of most cultures, a…
No, Iran Didn't Just Ban Women From Universities.
I awoke yesterday morning to a barrage of excited, fearful, and shocked emails and messages demanding to understand why Iran had suddenly decided to ban women from entering university. Given…
Misreading Feminism And Women’s Rights in Tehran: Beyond Chadors, Ninjabis, And Secular Fantasies
It is nearly impossible to read any article about Iranian women and not spend the entire time rolling your eyes. Historically, the Western media has tended to make liberal use…
The Afro-Iranian Community: Beyond Haji Firuz Blackface, the Slave Trade, & Bandari Music
برای ترجمهی فارسی اینجا کلیک کنید A friend recently shared two anecdotes from his trip to Iran with me that deal with race and skin color in the Iranian context.…
“The Iranian Schindler”: Abdol-Hossein Sardari’s Fight to Save the Iranian Jews of Occupied France
Written by guest author Elise K. Burton, a doctoral student in the History and Middle Eastern Studies Program at Harvard University who earned her PhD in 2017. A new, exciting book on Iranian…
Afghans in Iran: Contradictory State Policies and a Grassroots Anti-Racist Movement
Part III of a series on Afghan refugees in Iran. Earlier this year, I begun a series highlighting the experiences of Afghan refugees in Iran. By focusing on cultural production,…
A “Persian” Iran?: Challenging the Aryan Myth and Persian Ethnocentrism
Iran is a multi-ethnic country that is home to a diversity of languages, ethnic groups, and religions. So why do people think its a “Persian” country? The roots of this misconception lie in an ideology called Aryanism promoted by the Pahlavi Dynasty to homogenize the country.
Kolahghermezi’s Enduring Popularity: Humor and Solidarity in Iranian TV Children’s Programming
A guest post on contemporary Iranian pop culture from Maryam Momeni. My first memory of children’s programming on IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) goes back to the early 1980s…
Politics of the Iranian Box Office: Mocking the Morality Police and Green Movement Conspiracies
Over the last few decades, Iranian cinema has burst onto the global stage, earning worldwide acclaim and, most recently, a Golden Globe and an Oscar. No major film festival is…