Dr. Jamil Hasanli is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (SAS) of the University of London. He was advisor to the president of Azerbaijan in 1993 and served two terms as a Member of Parliament of Azerbaijan in 2000-2010. In 2013, he was a candidate for the presidential election, representing the united opposition. Professor Hasanli was a History and Public Policy Scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center in 2011, and 2020. He received the 2015 Ion Ratiu Democracy Award of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 2016-2017 he was scholar at the Cold War Center at East China Normal University in Shanghai. Dr. Hasanli is the author of several books published in Azerbaijan, Russia, USA, UK, Turkey, Iran, Hong Kong (China) and other countries. Fouг of his monographs were published in the Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series.

*Correction note from the speaker: At the 56:49 mark it is "11 tons of gold," not "11 thousand tons."

Saeid Golkar is the UC Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He specializes in the politics of authoritarian regimes, with a particular focus on Iran and the broader Middle East. He earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Tehran and previously held research and teaching positions at Stanford University and Northwestern University. Golkar is the author of Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Post-Revolutionary Iran (Columbia University Press, 2015), which received the Washington Institute’s Silver Medal Prize. His forthcoming book, Dictators and the Higher Education Dilemma, will be published by Rutgers University Press in spring 2026.

Data from this paper shows that Iran's oil exports have not only recovered from their lowest points under strict sanctions, but now surpass the peak levels seen during the JCPOA. The authors explore the primary causes behind this rebound. The discussion also dissects the intricate barter system that allows Iran to trade oil for goods, technology, and infrastructure projects, bypassing the international financial system. They analyze how this mechanism funnels resources to entities like the IRGC, fueling both domestic suppression and foreign aggression. Finally, they assess the future of this paradigm and its implications for Iran.

Matin Mirramezani manages the Stanford Iran 2040 Project and has been a contributor to the project since 2018. He studied economics at Stanford and co-founded the Generation Lab, a youth-focused data intelligence company. He is passionate about innovative research methods and policies that promote development. He is also the co-author of The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022).

Sam Samani is a senior at Stanford University studying Political Science with a minor in Iranian Studies. His research focuses on Iranian elite politics, institutional continuity, and U.S. policy toward Iran, with particular attention to sanctions, succession dynamics, and state capacity. He has conducted research with the Hoover Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and has professional experience at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Part of the Stanford Iran 2040 Project: goto.stanford.edu/iran2040

Dominic Parviz Brookshaw is Professor of Persian Literature and Iranian Culture at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow in Persian at Wadham College, Oxford. From 2011 - 2013, he was Assistant Professor of Persian and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He has published widely on premodern and modern Persian literature, and his articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals including Iranian Studies, Middle Eastern Literatures, and IRAN: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. His most recent book, Hafiz and His Contemporaries: Poetry, Performance, and Patronage in Fourteenth-century Iran (Bloomsbury, 2019), won the Saidi-Sirjani Book Award in 2020. He serves currently as the President of the Association for Iranian Studies.

Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

Cosponsored by the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution.

PANELISTS (in order of appearance)

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. He also chairs the Hoover Institution Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and is the principal investigator of the Global Digital Policy Incubator, part of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy. He is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy.

H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. McMaster holds a PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of multiple bestselling books and has published many essays, articles, and book reviews on leadership, history, and the future of warfare.

Abbas Milani is the Director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University, Adjunct Professor and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Milani has authored and translated numerous books in Persian and English and published more than 250 essays and book reviews in journals and papers. He is currently completing a book on Reza Shah.

Matin Mirramezani manages the Stanford Iran 2040 Project and has been a contributor to the project since 2018. He studied economics at Stanford and co-founded the Generation Lab, a youth-focused data intelligence company. He is passionate about innovative research methods and policies that promote development. He is also the co-author of The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022).

Mobina Riazi is a master’s student in communications at Stanford University, with an emphasis on media studies. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, with a minor in Iranian studies, from Stanford University in 2025. Her research focuses on media, governance, and the law, with particular attention to digital repression and state power in authoritarian contexts.

Sam Samani is a senior at Stanford University studying Political Science with a minor in Iranian Studies. His research focuses on Iranian elite politics, institutional continuity, and U.S. policy toward Iran, with particular attention to sanctions, succession dynamics, and state capacity. He has conducted research with the Hoover Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and has professional experience at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Sam is currently completing an honors thesis on Iran’s political elite and is a course reader for Dr. Milani's courses on modern Iranian politics and U.S. relations with Iran.

Bailey Ulbricht, JD ’22, is the founding Executive Director at the Stanford Humanitarian Program, where she works on legal projects aimed at reducing harm in conflict settings and other insecure environments. Her research interests include laws governing the use of force and the intersection of technology and international humanitarian and human rights law, including how technology can be leveraged to gather evidence of possible legal violations.

Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.

Mohsen B. Mesgaren

Matin Mirramezani

Mohsen Amiri

Read the report: http://goto.stanford.edu/tehranprotests

The contemporary history of Iran has been closely bound up with recurring waves of large-scale protests. From those preceding the Constitutional Revolution, the 1979 Revolution, as well as numerous demonstrations with demands ranging from the incremental to the radical, with a range of causes such as social, political, or economical. Iran’s capital, Tehran, has consistently served as a staging ground for crowds that have “poured into” the streets to voice their dissent.

Most existing studies of protests in Iran rely on individual narratives or media portrayals. In the vacuum of on-the-ground reporting and empirical evidence, the current understanding of protests in Iran primarily relies on speculations and anecdotes. This study adopts a data-driven approach by compiling a structured, open-sourced archive of protests in the capital city of Tehran as the foundation for deeper analysis.

This research is grounded in an original dataset of over 8,500 protest observations compiled by the authors. This comprehensive dataset was derived from a universe of about 120,000 visual documents and text-based news reports between 2009 and 2024. Each protest observation was systematically reviewed and tagged. We use this information to provide an overview of the temporal and spatial characteristics of the protests in Tehran and analyze the evolving discourse of dissent using chants from these protests. This granular data allows for an unprecedented, evidence-based look at how protest tactics and public sentiment have evolved in Iran's capital.

Mohsen B. Mesgaran is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Davis, and a Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (UNU-INWEH), where he leads the Ecological Modeling and Food Security. Prior to joining UC Davis, he was a Research Scientist at Stanford University's Iranian Studies Program (Stanford Iran 2040 Project), where he conducted large-scale, data-driven studies related to land and water resources in Iran, which culminated in the co-authorship of the book The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022) https://www.sup.org/books/politics/st....

Mohsen Amiri is a researcher working on urban studies and data-driven analysis of protest and dissent in Iran. He has collaborated with the Stanford Iran 2040 Project on spatiotemporal datasets on protests and urban unrest, contributing to mapping protest dynamics in Tehran and other cities. His work combines GIS and discourse analysis to examine how space and power interact during mass mobilization. He is preparing to begin his PhD at the University of Sydney, focusing on urban revolt and repression in Iran between 2009 and 2022.

Matin Mirramezani manages the Stanford Iran 2040 Project and has been a contributor to the project since 2018. He studied economics at Stanford and co-founded the Generation Lab, a youth-focused data intelligence company. He is passionate about innovative research methods and policies that promote development. He is also the co-author of The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022).

Part of the Stanford Iran 2040 Project

Bahram Ghadiri was born in 1949 in Tehran, Iran. He graduated from Tehran University, where he studied under noted philosophers on Islamic and Persian art and architecture such as Titus Burkhardt, Henry Corbin and Hossein Nasr. His interest in the traditional art and architecture led him to engage in practical learning with master-masons and artists. At the age of 28 he became the Director of Niyavaran National Cultural Center, one of the most prestigious centers for art and architecture in Iran. Among his many projects in Iran are the restoration and revitalization of Akhavan Sigari Mansion (Yazd), Tajrish Municipal Libraries (Tehran), Main Entrance Gate to Bazaar Shishegar Khaneh (Tabriz), Seyed Aladin Hossein Mausoleum (a village near Hamadan), Miandasht Caravansary Complex (Miandasht on Silkroad), Dar Al-fonun School (Tehran), and Khan Bathhouse (Yazd Bazaar). In 2001, the Khan Bathhouse was the winner of the Aga Khan Foundation Award for Architecture prize. As a professor of Historic Preservation in the School of Architecture & Urban Planning, Shahid Beheshti University from 1986 to 2003, Prof. Ghadiri led 16 years of research on Persian bazaars, a first of its kind in the nation, involving over 800 graduate students. The result was a complete survey of the physical and non-physical elements, and developing a methodology for study of bazaars and their causes of decay. He also served as visiting professor at the School of Architecture & Urban Planning at Yazd University and Isfahan University (1995-2001). Prof. Ghadiri is the author of four books, 30 articles and over a half a dozen academic handouts on topics of conservation and preservation of Iranian historical building, city fabric, and bazaars. He is also the founder and president of Foundation for Persian Archaeological Studies.

Contrary to the widely held narrative portraying Iran and Saudi Arabia as cooperative partners during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, recently declassified diplomatic records and personal accounts from those close to the Shah reveal a far more complex picture. In the wake of Britain’s withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in 1971, the region entered a moment of uncertainty. One that seemed to offer both Iran and Saudi Arabia a chance to shape a new regional order. For a brief moment, the Shah appeared willing to engage in genuine partnership, seeking stability through coordination with Riyadh under the broader umbrella of the Nixon Doctrine.

Yet, this early openness soon gave way to a vision defined by hierarchy rather than cooperation. Convinced of Iran’s historical and strategic superiority, the Shah began to imagine a Persian Gulf order centered on Iranian dominance, in which Saudi Arabia would play a secondary, supportive role. His ambitions were encouraged by American security guarantees but constrained by the limits of dependence on them - a paradox that defined Iran’s fragile autonomy during the 1970s.

Drawing on newly accessible archives, including the Zahedi Papers at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, and first-hand testimonies, this lecture traces how shifting regional power dynamics, personal rivalries, and the politics of prestige shaped Iran’s approach to its Arab neighbors. It revisits key turning points, including the 1971 island crisis, to show how mistrust between Tehran and Riyadh deepened despite superficial gestures of unity. Ultimately, the lecture asks why the promise of cooperation between the two states never materialized, and what this failed friendship reveals about the tension between ambition and constraint that continues to define Iran’s role in the Persian Gulf to this day.

Diba Mirzaei is a researcher at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and a PhD candidate at the University of Hamburg. Her dissertation, “Iran’s Foreign Policy toward Saudi Arabia from 1968–1979: Fragile Autonomy under the Nixon Doctrine” (submitted in June 2025), explores how Iran’s policy toward Saudi Arabia intersected with interpretations of the Shah’s autonomy.

Mirzaei’s research interests include Iranian foreign policy and feminist approaches to international relations. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked at the German Federal Foreign Office in the field of humanitarian assistance.

Speakers: Bailey Ulbricht, Allen Weiner, and Mobina Riazi.

Read their report: https://law.stanford.edu/publications/school-poisonings-in-iran-an-open-source-investigation/

On November 30, 2022, in the midst of protests around the country in Iran for the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, schoolgirls at Noor Conservatory Girls’ School in Qom City experienced a bizarre and terrifying event while at school. They smelled “poisonous gas” and experienced symptoms that sent 18 of them to the hospital. From November 2022 to May 2023, there were hundreds of similar poisoning incidents reported at schools around the country, the vast majority of them at girls’ schools. Videos captured by witnesses depicted girls coughing, vomiting, and struggling to walk in front of their schools. Yet at the same time, contradictory information began calling these incidents into question, casting doubt on the seriousness of the girls’ symptoms or claiming that the poisonings were psychological. Eventually, the Iranian government concluded in its own investigation that the vast majority of the alleged poisoning incidents were caused by girls’ anxiety or hysteria. But is that actually true?

Over the past year and a half, the Stanford Humanitarian Program, with support from the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, has conducted an open-source investigation into these poisoning incidents, working to uncover what actually happened and whether the Iranian government covered them up.

In this talk, Bailey Ulbricht, Allen S. Weiner, and Mobina Riazi present their newly released report on the poisoning incidents, including what happened, what the Iranian government did in response, and what the legal implications under international law are, including next steps for justice and accountability.

Bailey Ulbricht, JD ’22, is the founding Executive Director at the Stanford Humanitarian Program, where she works on legal projects aimed at reducing harm in conflict settings and other insecure environments. Her research interests include laws governing the use of force and the intersection of technology and international humanitarian and human rights law, including how technology can be leveraged to gather evidence of possible legal violations.

Allen S. Weiner, JD ’89, is an international legal scholar whose research and teaching focus primarily on the fields of international security and international conflict resolution. He also studies the challenges of online misinformation and disinformation. In the international security realm, his work spans such issues as international law and the response to contemporary security threats; the relationship between international and domestic law in the context of armed conflict; the law of war (international humanitarian law); just war theory, and international criminal law (including transitional justice). Weiner’s scholarship is deeply informed by experience; he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State for more than a decade advising government policymakers, negotiating international agreements, and representing the United States in litigation before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Court of Justice, and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal. Senior Lecturer Weiner is director of the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law, director of the Stanford Humanitarian Program, and director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2003, Weiner served as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague and attorney adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC. He clerked for Judge John Steadman of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Mobina Riazi is a master’s student in communications at Stanford University, with an emphasis on media studies. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, with a minor in Iranian studies, from Stanford University in 2025. Her research focuses on media, governance, and the law, with particular attention to digital repression and state power in authoritarian contexts.

The Sunbird and the Story of Kanun: Revisiting the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Iran

In 1965, a visionary proposal by Lily Amir-Arjomand to Queen Farah Pahlavi—to establish a library for children in Iran—gave rise to The Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, known in Iran simply as Kanun. Over the next thirteen years, under Amir-Arjomand’s leadership, more than 250 permanent and mobile libraries opened their doors in cities and villages across the country. Alongside them, cultural centers flourished, dedicated to publishing, cinema, theater, music, and animation for children. To mark Kanun’s 60th anniversary, Dr. Mandana Zandian's new book The Sunbird looks back at these formative years. The book unfolds in two parts, both in interview format: a long in-depth conversation with Lily Amir-Arjomand, and a collection of twenty-three short interviews with those who helped build Kanun’s diverse cultural centers or who were once members of its libraries.

Lily Amir-Arjomand is the founder and first Managing director of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Iran. She studied French Literature at the University of Tehran. After completing an intensive library science training program at the Iran-America Society, she joined in developing the newly established library of the National University. A few years later, she earned a master’s degree in library science and children literature from Rutgers University in the United States and returned to Iran with the vision of establishing a children’s library. Meanwhile she managed the library of the National Iranian Oil Company for three years. In collaboration with Marguerite Hopkins, a library consultant and instructor, and four other librarians, she helped draft the statutes of the Iranian Librarians Association and contributed to organizing the master’s program in Library Science at the University of Tehran. Amir-Arjomand also taught library science at the University of Tehran for one year. Ultimately, with the support of Empress Farah Pahlavi, she founded the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in 1965 and served as its managing director until leaving Iran in 1979. In 2021, the film magazine “Sight & Sound” included Lily Amir-Arjomand in its list of “100 Hidden Cinema Heroes,” recognizing her as one of the individuals who have shaped the course of filmmaking history.

Mandana Zandian graduated from Shahid Beheshti Medical School in 1997. She worked as a researcher at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles for 20 years, specializing in research on aggressive forms of advanced cancers. Dr. Zandian is also a published poet, author, and journalist, actively collaborating with "Rahavard" quarterly journal. Her books include: Omid o Azadi (Hope and Liberty, Los Angeles, 2012) on the life and works of Iraj Gorgin; Baz-khani-e Dah Shab (The Ten-Nights Revisited, Los Angeles, 2014); Ehsan Yarshater in Conversation with Mandana Zandian (Los Angeles, 2016); Persian Cypress and the Blooms of Modernity, in Conversation with Abbas Milani (Los Angeles, 2023). She also edited Yaddashtha (Diaries, Washington DC, 2021), a collection of notes written between 1986-2012 for the journals "Irannameh" and "Iranshenasi" by Dr. Ehsan Yarshater. Zandian's most recent collection of poems is titled Seda-ye Saye-haye Ham Boodim (Our Voice Echoed the Shadows of All, Los Angeles, 2019). Dr. Zandian is also the host and producer of a podcast on Persian Literature titled "A Window of Freedom." She collaborated on a section of Homa Sarshar's weekly radio program, introducing Persian contemporary poets, for 10 years. Zandian's latest book, Morgh-e Aftab (The Sunbird), revisits the establishment and the first 13 years of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults.

Hossein Amanat established his international reputation in 1966 when, as a recent graduate, he won a nationwide competition to design the Shahyad (now Azadi) Monument in Tehran—an architectural icon that has since become a symbol of modern Iran. This early success led to a series of prestigious commissions, including some of the most acclaimed modern buildings in Iran: the Persian Heritage Centre; the School of Management at the University of Tehran; the Aryamehr (now Sharif) University of Technology; the Iranian Embassy in Beijing—regarded as one of the architectural highlights of the city's diplomatic quarter—and the planning of Darya Kenar, a new town on the Caspian Sea.

Born in Iran in 1942, it was remarkable that such a young architect was entrusted with projects of this scale and importance. Even more significant is Amanat’s distinctive design philosophy: among the first Iranian architects to harmonize contemporary architectural principles with the rich legacy of traditional Persian design. At a time when Western cultural and artistic influence was dominant in Iran—and when many architects were following the International Style—Amanat was pioneering an original synthesis of modernity and tradition.

Amanat’s innovative practice, deeply rooted in Persian architectural heritage, was abruptly interrupted by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, marking a dramatic turning point in his life and career. As a member of the persecuted Baha'i faith, he and his young family were forced into exile. Following a brief stay in Europe, they immigrated to Canada in 1980, where Amanat established a renewed and diverse architectural practice.

Amanat’s work has earned many design awards and led to global invitations to lecture on architecture. He is among the founding faculty of the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), a grassroots institution established in response to the Iranian government’s systematic denial of education to Baha'is. He has also contributed to the University of British Columbia (UBC) as a visiting critic at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and recently served on a committee that successfully raised funds for a new tenure-track position in Persian Language and Iranian Studies.

In recognition of his lifetime achievements and contributions to architecture, Hossein Amanat was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by UBC in May 2024—a fitting tribute to a visionary architect whose work continues to inspire. Deeply engaged with Iranian history and literature, Amanat consistently draws on these cultural sources, demonstrating a remarkable ability to blend diverse traditions into his distinctive, enduring architectural language.

ABOUT THE BITA PRIZE FOR PERSIAN ARTS:

The annual Bita Prize for Persian Arts is awarded by the Stanford Iranian Studies Program to an artist of Iranian ancestry whose work, in the course of their lifetime, has exhibited singular achievements in both the realm of aesthetics and in the essence of defending the rights of artists to create, free from any fetters. The recipient is invited to Stanford University to give a public lecture and receive the prize. Since its inception in 2008, the Bita Prize has been awarded to outstanding Iranian scholars, artists and creators.

Reza Alirezaieyan is an Iranian architectural historian residing in Dallas, United States. One might say he was destined to study the history of Iranian industry and architecture: on his father’s side, his ancestors helped construct oil refineries in Abadan, while on his mother’s, they participated in building the Trans-Iranian Railway. He has long been dedicated to investigating and documenting the pivotal transformation of Iranian architecture, and his unique perspective—merging technical expertise with a passion for history—offers a fresh and invaluable insight into a key period of Iran’s past.

On The Rocky Road Of Life is the richly detailed personal and professional memoir of Zakaria Hashemi—an artist whose life story unfolds across the alleys and seasons of Tehran, from the scorching heat to the biting cold, from the south to the north of the city during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The book traces his early days, growing up amid poverty in the neighborhoods of Shahr-e Rey and southern Tehran, where a spirit of athleticism and community prevailed, and follows his entry into cinema as a background actor in the early 1950s.

Hashemi’s gradual emergence into Iran’s intellectual circles begins with his encounter with Farrokh Ghaffari, leading to his involvement in landmark films like South of the City (1958) and Night of the Hunchback (1963). His pivotal meeting with Ebrahim Golestan and Forough Farrokhzad not only earned him the lead role in one of the most significant cultural films in Iranian cinema history (Brick and Mirror, 1965) but also inspired him to write novels such as The Parrot and The Crumpled Coloured Papers. In Golestan Studio, he emerged as one of the boldest voices in Iranian naturalist fiction, unafraid to write candidly about lived experience, all while preserving a lyrical tone rooted in the rhythm of spoken Persian.

The memoir is both a cinematic and literary journey. It charts the course of pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema—both popular and intellectual—while following Hashemi’s transformation from actor to filmmaker. Alongside his artistic development, the book delves into his personal and romantic life in a society experiencing rapid development but also plagued by opportunists and deceitful individuals, whose detailed accounts are shared without exaggeration but with insight into the social trust and naivety of the time.

Covering the entirety of Iran’s sociopolitical evolution during the Pahlavi era, the book also captures the confusion and stagnation that followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution for many artists, investors, and civil servants. It reflects on the waves of bans, censorship, war, and the radical rewriting of reality that eventually led to the author’s involuntary exile—an exile that has now lasted over forty years.

On The Rocky Road Of Life is not merely the story of one remarkable artistic life—it’s also a vibrant social document. Through vivid dialogue and detailed observations, Hashemi presents one of the most comprehensive portraits of everyday Iranians, from laborers, addicts, and athletes to poets, painters, filmmakers, and statesmen. For those who never lived through that era—or never had someone patiently recount it for them—this memoir is a rare and invaluable record. It is the heartfelt tale of an Iran once on the rise, later trapped in deadlock, told by a witness with clear eyes and an open mind.

Zakaria Hashemi is an acclaimed director, novelist, and actor. He has made several documentaries for Iranian national television. He has also directed three feature films, including Se Ghaap (1971). He was the lead actor in several Iranian films including Ebrahim Golestan’s Brick and Mirror (1965) and Amir Naderi’s Khodahafez Rafigh (1971). Mr. Hashemi has written seven books, including Tooti (1969), With Open Eyes (2004), and The Vagabond (2021). Mr. Hashemi’s writing skills were discovered by Forugh Farrokzad, while he was working at Studio Golestan in the 1960’s.

Book passage reading by Russell Parsi.

Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

Ehssan Hanif

Fifth Zahedi Family Fellow lecture held at Stanford University.

Following a brief period of oil nationalization, the 1953 coup that overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh marked a critical turning point in Iran’s political and economic trajectory. The coup paved the way for the 1954 Consortium Agreement—a pivotal settlement between the Iranian state and the global oil cartel known as the “Seven Sisters,” of which five were American corporations. Framed as part of a broader strategy for Iran’s modernization, the consortium agreement and its accompanying financial arrangements positioned oil revenues as the engine of national development. This framework not only redefined the management of Iran’s subsoil wealth but also cemented a decisive turn in the country’s foreign policy, shifting the axis of influence from British imperial control to expanding American oversight. This lecture, beginning with the 1920s, traces the power dynamics over Iran’s subsoil that culminated in the 1954 consortium and the accompanying geopolitical shift. It interrogates how oil functioned not merely as an economic resource but as a fulcrum of political sovereignty and international leverage. In particular, this talk examines how British and Russian colonial entanglements fueled Iran’s geopolitical anxieties, ultimately rendering American intervention not only acceptable but, at moments, desirable to segments of the Iranian authorities. By foregrounding oil as a central actor in this drama, this talk aims to shed light on how subterranean resources reshaped Iran’s developmental imaginaries and geopolitical alignments —particularly its pivot toward the United States—even before the onset of the Cold War. Ehssan Hanif is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Architecture and Urban Development at Cornell University. His research, tentatively titled Petro-domesticity and Modernity in Iran (1929–1963), explores the intricate history of oil and architectural modernity within Iranian domestic spaces, mapping their manifestations from Abadan to Tehran. In his work, he examines how the interplay between oil workers’ movements, international interests in Iran’s subsoil resources, and nationalist discourses reshaped housing projects across Iranian cities. Prior to his time at Cornell, he worked as an independent researcher and translator in Iran, translating several seminal texts into Persian, including Architecture and Modernity (H. Heynen), Benjamin for Architects (B. Elliot), The Story of Post-modernism (C. Jenks), and Aesthetic Theory: Essential Texts (M.F. Gage). Ehssan’s latest scholarly contribution, “Cinemas on Fire: Walter Benjamin’s Spielraum and the 1979 Revolution in Iran,” is forthcoming in Middle East Critique.

Mahasti Afshar joins us to discuss her book Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis 1967-1977 (Mage Publishers, 2025), an international event that was held every summer between 1976-1977 in Shiraz and Persepolis. The festival presented outstanding works in music, dance, drama, and film from around the world with the goal of generating a cross-cultural dialogue and enriching the Iranian creative domain in the process.

Afshar explores the festival’s formation under the patronage of Queen Farah Pahlavi and its administration by the National Iranian Television under the direction of Reza Ghotbi. Many of the classical, modern, and experimental works that stood out for the audience and cultural critics are summarized in the book. These include Iranian music, Shia passion plays and Shahnameh recitations, and new and original plays, feature films and documentaries by Iranian artists, as well as works commissioned by the festival from foreign artists created in dialogue with Iran’s cultural heritage.

An English article on the Shiraz Festival is available online at Iran Namag 4, no. 2 (Summer 2019) and under the name of Mahasti Afshar in www.academia.edu.

Mahasti Afshar was an employee at the National Iranian Television responsible for recording the Shiraz Festival programs live for later broadcasting on television. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indo-European Folklore and Mythology at Harvard and pursued a career as a nonprofit executive at the Getty Conservation Institute and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She now devotes herself to translating and writing, most recently Lament for Siavash, which she presented at Stanford last spring, Simorgh: Portraits on My Mind, and Shiraz Arts Festival (in Persian).

Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

Simorgh: Portraits on My Mind (Mage Publishers, 2025), is one of Abbas Milani’s most self-reflective and engaging books. The two-part Persian original, Si-Chehreh, has been masterfully translated by Mahasti Afshar in a single volume. Titled Simorgh after the mythical bird that embodies humanity’s collective quest for the truth in Attar’s poetry, Milani explores the lives and passions, illusions, utopian aspirations, frailties, harrowing experiences of prison and exile, and the diasporic accomplishments of sixty Iranians who actively or inadvertently paved the way to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Milani lived and worked in Iran until 1987 and was deeply embedded in the crosscurrents of the lives of the nationalist, Tudeh’i, Stalinist, Maoist, Islamist, and/or the politically unaffiliated individuals portrayed in what he calls nonfiction, historical short stories. They include some of Iran’s most renowned writers, politicians, scholars, artists, and activists as well as Milani’s friends and family who act as a backdrop against which the saga unfolds. Anyone who lived in Iran in the 1960s-1970s will likely recognize something of themselves in these personalities, or in Milani himself whose presence runs like a current through all the portraits.

The conversation will be led jointly by Abbas Milani and Mahasti Afshar. They will share their stories, in English, about their collaboration, and read excerpts from both the original and the translation.

Mahasti Afshar (Ziai) earned a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indo-European Folklore and Mythology at Harvard. She pursued a career as a nonprofit arts and culture executive, including at the Getty Conservation Institute and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She now devotes herself to translating and writing, most recently Lament for Siavash, which she presented at Stanford last spring, Simorgh: Portraits on My Mind, and Shiraz Arts Festival (in Persian).

Abbas Milani is the Director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University, Adjunct Professor and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Milani has authored and translated numerous books in Persian and English and published more than 250 essays and book reviews in journals and papers. He is currently completing a book on Reza Shah.

Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

The relationship between music and revolution has often been a fraught one. This lecture discusses the tension between the two, focusing on the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It chronicles the evolution of state policy towards music in the years 1979-1988 against the background of doctrinal discussions within Twelver Shiism in Iran, that pitted traditionalists against the charismatic authority of Ayatollah Khomeini, which ultimately imposed itself. The lecture provides comparative perspectives by adducing evidence from other instances of tensions between music and religious revolution.

Houchang Chehabi is a professor of international relations and history emeritus at Boston University. He is the author of three books and editor or co-editor of twelve books, most recently Unconquered States: Non-Western Powers in the Imperial Age (OUP, 2024).

Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

This conversation between Dr. Kaveh Madani and Dr. Mohsen B. Mesgaran on May 1, 2025 at Stanford University explored the connections between self-sufficiency, food security, and the pressures on Iran’s water and agricultural systems. The discussion examined whether the drive for self-sufficiency has contributed to water resource depletion and environmental degradation. It also addressed whether technological advancements could help resolve water challenges and enable sustainable self-sufficiency or secure food production through more efficient agricultural practices. The dialogue offered insights into balancing agricultural goals with environmental and water resource management.

The conversation was moderated by Matin Mirramezani, the Stanford Iran 2040 Project Manager at the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University.

Kaveh Madani is the Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) and the Founding Chair of the UNU Sustainability Nexus AID Programme. Additionally, he holds a Research Professorship at the City University of New York's Remote Sensing Earth Systems Institute. Dr. Madani is a distinguished environmental scientist, educator, and leader renowned for his interdisciplinary approach to addressing complex environmental and human security challenges. He has previously served as the Deputy Head of Iran’s Department of Environment. He joined UNU from Yale University and prior to his public service, he was a tenured faculty member of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. He has over 350 publications addressing critical issues such as water management, environmental policy, energy systems, food security, climate change adaptation, and environmental diplomacy across various regions. His pioneering contributions to science, policy, and society have earned him multiple prestigious awards, including the New Face of Civil Engineering (ASCE), Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists (EGU), Walter Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (ASCE), Ambassador Award (AGU), and Honorary Diplomate (EWRA).

Mohsen B. Mesgaran is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis, and a Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (UNU-INWEH), where he leads the Ecological Modeling and Food Security. As an agroecologist and modeler, Dr. Mesgaran works at the intersection of agriculture, ecology, and technology, employing quantitative approaches that integrate statistical and mathematical models, physiological (crop growth) models, and machine learning (AI) to develop “eco-tech” solutions for the ecological management of agricultural and natural systems. His overarching research goal is to enhance the sustainability of agroecosystems and reduce the environmental impact of agricultural practices through the integration of ecological principles, agronomy, and advanced technology. Prior to joining UC Davis, he was a Research Scientist at Stanford University's Iranian Studies Program (Stanford Iran 2040 Project), where he conducted large-scale, data-driven studies related to land and water resources in Iran, which culminated in the co-authorship of the book The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022).

Part of the Stanford Iran 2040 Project. https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/iran-2040-project/home

از من گفتن بود: کاش خاموشی بود؛ روزگارِ همهمه و هیاهوست. سکوت، گوهرِ کمیاب و حتی نایابی‌ست. اهلِ زبان، نااهل شده‌اند، وگرنه زبان فارسی در بهترین وقتِ خود است. از کلامِ کهن تا روزمره را می‌توان کنار هم کاشت؛ زیبا، رَسا و گویا، فارغ از هیچ توضیح و شرحی، می‌بالد، بار می‌گیرد و بار می‌دهد. کاش می‌شد دل‌ْدرست نشست و فقط گفت و نوشت. مجالِ ما—درست‌تر بگویم، مجالِ من—تنگ و تُرُش بود. از من گفتن بود، گفتم:

“I wish there was quietude; it’s a time of noise and commotion. Silence is a gem hard or even impossible to find. Lovers of language, are loveless now, otherwise the Persian language is in its prime. One can even plant ancient and everyday words side by side; beautiful, clear and articulate, without any explanation or description, it flourishes, takes and bears fruit. I wish it were possible to sincerely sit and only speak and write. Our opportunity—let me be more precise, my opportunity—was tight and tart. I had to say, and I said it.”

وقتی نام خانوادگی آدم عظیمی باشد، بهترین اسم کوچک هم عبدالعلی‌ست. در واقع، من در ۱۴ بهمن ۱۳۳۶ دنیا آمده‌ام، اما در شناسنامه ۲۴ بهمن ۱۳۳۵ قید شده است. زادگاهم ابرکوه است که به ابرقو معروف است. تا زمان دستگیری (۱۳۵۴) همان‌جا درس می‌خواندم. دیپلمم را در زندان گرفتم و پس از آن در دانشگاه تهران در رشتهٔ فلسفه قبول شدم که با وقوع انقلاب فرهنگی به ابرقو بازگشتم و به کشاورزی پرداختم. تا سال ۶۹، علی‌رغم بازگشایی دانشگاه، از ادامهٔ تحصیل محروم شدم. پس از کسب اجازه، تغییر رشته و دانشگاه دادم و در رشتهٔ زبان و ادبیات فرانسه دانشگاه شهید بهشتی درس خواندم. دانشگاه حقیقی من وقتی شروع شد که پس از آشنایی با دوستان نویسنده و شاعر، از جمله اکبر سردوزامی، مرتضی ثقفیان، کامران بزرگ‌نیا و...، با گلشیری آشنا شدم و در جمع پنجشنبه‌ها پذیرفته شدم. با داستان شروع کردم و از سال ۶۶ با شعر آشنا شدم. دو مجموعه شعر، «با نام گل» و «از جغرافیای من»، منتشر کرده‌ام و در هر نشریه‌ای که گلشیری سردبیر بود ــ مفید، زنده‌رود و کارنامه ــ از جمله دبیران شعر آن‌ها بوده‌ام. در حال حاضر، از تابستان ۱۴۰۳ به ابرکوه برگشته‌ام و به‌همراه گربه‌ها، مرغ‌ها و خروس‌ها در خانهٔ پدری زندگی می‌کنم و به‌جز شعر، مشغولیت و مسئولیتی ندارم.

“When one's last name is Azimi (great), the best first name is also Abdolali (servant of the great Ali). In fact, I was born on February 3, 1958, but my birth certificate notes February 13, 1957.

My birthplace is Abarkuh, which is known as Abarghoo. I studied there until my arrest (1975). I received my diploma in prison and afterwards, I was admitted to the University of Tehran for Philosophy, but with the events of the cultural revolution, I returned to Abarghoo and took up farming. Until 1990, despite the reopening of the university, I was prohibited from continuing my education. After obtaining permission, I changed my university and field of study and studied French Language and Literature at Shahid Beheshti University.

My real university began when, after getting acquainted with writer and poet friends, including Akbar Sardouzami, Morteza Saqfian, Kamran Bozorgnia, and others, I met Houshang Golshiri and was accepted into the Thursday gatherings. I started with stories and became acquainted with poetry in 1987. I have published two poetry collections, "Ba Nam-e Gol (With the Name of the Flower)" and "Az Goghrafiyaye Man (From My Geography)," and every publication where Golshiri was the editor-in-chief, such as Mofid, Zendeh-Rood, and Karnameh, I was the poetry editor as well.

Since the summer of 2024, I have returned to Abarkooh and live in my family home along with the cats, chickens, and roosters, and besides poetry, I have no other occupation or responsibility.”

Discussion with the writers and directors of the Academy Award winning film “In the Shadow of the Cypress,” Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani. The film won the 2025 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.

“A former captain, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, lives with his daughter in a humble house located by the sea. Together, they live an isolated life and have to confront the challenges of a harsh life.

Despite the captain's deep desire to be a devoted and caring father, he finds himself unable to fulfill his role and connect with his daughter in the way that he longs to.

One morning, their lives change forever when an unforeseen event occurs. Whether this event proves to be a newfound source of hope or an additional burden remains to be seen.”

Hossein Molayemi completed his M.A. in animation directing at the Tehran University of Art and started his professional career in 2004. His work includes directing, character design, storyboard artist, animator and university lecturer. In the Shadow of the Cypress is his second professional film. His first film, "Run Rostam Run" (2017) was selected at Annecy, Warsaw and several other Oscar-qualifying film festivals and won national and international awards. He is a board member of ASIFA Iran and the Animation Filmmakers Guild of Iran.

Shirin Sohani completed her M.A. in animation directing at the Tehran University of Art. She started her professional career in 2012 and has worked as a concept artist, background artist, script writer and production manager. In the Shadow of the Cypress is her first professional film. Her graduation animated film, "The Fan" (2014) won both national and international awards.

Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

Mikiya Koyagi is Assistant Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Texas at Austin. His research explores mobility and space in Iranian and inter-Asian history. His first book, Iran in Motion: Mobility, Space, and the Trans-Iranian Railway, was published from Stanford University Press in 2021. He is currently working on a new project on Japan’s Islamic Pan-Asianism since the late nineteenth century.

A half-day conference celebrating important archival collections at Stanford University created by or about Iranian women. Scholars explored the intricacies of archival creation, the vital role these collections play in preserving the modern history of Iranian women, and the pressing need for continued archival research and scholarship in this area.

Farzaneh Milani is Raymond J. Nelson Professor Emerita of Iranian literature and Gender Studies at the University of Virginia. She has published several articles and books, most recently, The Literary Biography of Forugh Farrokhzad and Unpublished Letters. Milani is currently working on a book project tentatively titled, “Iranian Women Writers at the Threshold of the Local and the Global.”

Sepideh Mohammadian was born in 1986 in Tehran, Iran. She is an author, screenwriter and researcher. She earned her BA in Law and MA in sociology and is fluent in Farsi, English, French and Turkish. Mohammadian has been writing for 20 years now, working with Roshangaran Publication since the beginning of her career as a writer. She has worked with several literary magazines in Iran having published short stories and also is a member of Pen America. Mohammadian’s research works focus on semiotics in films and the difficulties social, racial and sexual minorities face in society. She has written eight books some of which are banned in Iran. Her latest book, The Assembly of the Forgotten, which was banned in Iran, was recently published by Mehri Publication in London. Since she has been advocating for the freedom to write, particularly for marginalized voices, she actively promotes and highlights banned books by fellow writers on her social media platforms, aiming to raise awareness of their work and the unjust censorship they face.

Negar Mottahedeh is a Professor of Literature at Duke University. Her research on film, social media, and social movements in the Middle East has been published with Stanford University Press, Syracuse University Press, Duke University Press. This includes her monographs Whisper Tapes: Kate Millet in Iran which was published with Stanford UP in 2019, Displaced Allegories: Iranian Cinema 1980-2000 published with DUP in 2008 and #iranelection: hashtag solidarity and the transformation of online life. She has written for WIRED magazine, The Hill, Salon.com, The Observer and The Wall Street Journal. She holds a PhD in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society from the University of Minnesota and a BA in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College. Nahid Pirnazar is a lecturer of Iranian Studies at UCLA where she received her Ph.D. in 2004 in Iranian Studies with an emphasis on Judeo-Persian literature and Iranian Jewish History. She has been teaching the Habib Levy Visiting Professorship of Judeo-Persian Literature at UCLA since 2000, and the History of Iranian Jews at UCLA since 2007. Pirnazar is the founder and president of The House of Judeo-Persian Manuscripts, an academic organization, which collects, preserves, transliterates and publishes Judeo-Persian manuscripts. She presents her research internationally, which focuses on varied aspects of Judeo-Persian writings and Iranian literature as well as the history, culture and national identity of Iranian Jews.

Mona Tajali is a scholar of gender and politics, specializing in women's political participation and representation in Muslim countries, with a comparative focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Her research includes analysis of feminist mobilization against patriarchal structures as well as the experiences of institutionalization of women's rights in semi-democratic and non-democratic contexts. She is the author of Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table (2022) and co-author of Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (2011), both published as open access. She is also the co-editor of Women and Constitutions in Muslim Contexts (2024), the first compilation analyzing several national constitutions of the Muslim world through a gender lens. A firm believer in engaging across the academic-practitioner divide, Tajali has been a long-term collaborator with transnational solidarity network and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), and, since 2019, has served as a member of its executive board. She is published in both academic and popular outlets, among them the Middle East Journal, Politics & Gender, The Conversation, and The Washington Post. Tajali is a former associate professor of international relations and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.

Sponsored by Stanford's Green Library and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies

A half-day conference celebrating important archival collections at Stanford University created by or about Iranian women. Scholars explored the intricacies of archival creation, the vital role these collections play in preserving the modern history of Iranian women, and the pressing need for continued archival research and scholarship in this area.

Kioumars Ghereghlou is the Curator for Middle East Collections at the Stanford University Libraries. His most recent book is a critical edition of Hayati Tabrizi’s (d. after 1554) newly-found chronicle of the early Safavids and the opening years of the reign of Shah Isma’il I (New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society, 2018).

Homa Sarshar is a published author, award-winning journalist, writer, and media personality. She is the author of five books and the editor of nine volumes. From 1964 to 1978, she worked as a correspondent, reporter, and columnist for Zan-e Ruz weekly magazine and Kayhan daily newspaper in Iran. From 1972 to 1978 she worked as a television producer, director, and talk-show host for National Iranian Radio & Television. In 1978, Sarshar moved to Los Angeles where she resumed her career as a freelance journalist, radio and television producer, and on-air host. In 1982 as the co-producer, writer, and talk-show host of Omid Radio she co-founded a daily AM radio broadcast. In 1996, Sarshar founded the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History (CIJOH) in Los Angeles. In 2006, she founded Honar Foundation in Los Angeles. From 2006 until March 2021 Sarshar has been producing, writing, and hosting a two hour weekly radio show at 670AM KIRN. She earned a BA in French literature from Tehran University; a MA in journalism from the Annenberg School of Communications, USC; and a Ph.D. (HC) in Journalism from College of Letters and Science at the American World University – LA, CA. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Medal for Special Achievement in Women's Rights, given by The Iranian Women's Organization of Tehran, Iran; Journalism Award: Distinguished Iranian Women by the Encyclopaedia Iranica; Commendation for Community Affairs Services by the County of Los Angeles; 2013 Ellis Island Medal of Honor; 2016 American Heritage Award by American Immigration Council; and in 2023 the 13th Bita Prize for Persian Arts - Stanford University, Iranian Studies.

Mandana Zandian graduated from Shahid Beheshti Medical School in 1997. She worked as a researcher at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles for 20 years, specializing in research on aggressive forms of advanced cancers. Dr. Zandian is also a published poet, author, and journalist, actively collaborating with "Rahavard" quarterly journal. Her books include: Omid o Azadi (Hope and Liberty, Los Angeles, 2012) on the life and works of Iraj Gorgin; Baz-khani-e Dah Shab (The Ten-Nights Revisited, Los Angeles, 2014); Ehsan Yarshater in Conversation with Mandana Zandian (Los Angeles, 2016); She also edited Yaddashtha (Diaries, Washington DC, 2021), a collection of notes written between 1986-2012 for the journals "Irannameh" and "Iranshenasi" by Dr. Ehsan Yarshater. Zandian's most recent collection of poems is titled Seda-ye Saye-haye Ham Boodim (Our Voice Echoed the Shadows of All, Los Angeles, 2019). Dr. Zandian is also the host and producer of a podcast on Persian Literature titled "A Window of Freedom." She collaborated on a section of Homa Sarshar's weekly radio program, introducing Persian contemporary poets, for 10 years. Zandian's latest book is titled Persian Cypress and the Booms of Modernity, in Conversation with Abbas Milani (Los Angeles, 2023).

Abbas Milani is the Director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University, an Adjunct Professor, and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Milani is the author of numerous books in Persian and English. Most recently, he published 30 Portraits (Persian Circle). Milani has also translated numerous books and articles into Persian and English. He has published more than 250 essays and book reviews in journals and papers.

Sponsored by Stanford's Green Library and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies.

This talk debunks the myth that, since alcohol is forbidden in Islam, “good” Muslims do not drink. It argues that, rather than extraneous to Islam, alcohol is integral to the faith, present through its very presumed absence. It presents traditional Islam, heir to a variegated Byzantine-Christian and Persian-Zoroastrian vinous tradition, not as the pettifogging creed that it appears to be today, but as a capacious faith that accommodated alcohol consumption as the privilege of youth and the prerogative of royalty, enabling the sin of drinking to be expiated through repentance, and conniving at the drinking of commoners so long as it did not disturb the social order.

Rudi Matthee is the John and Dorothy Munroe Professor of History at the University of Delaware and President of the Persian Heritage Foundation.

By examining the musical and extramusical concepts embedded in these intercultural collaborations, this discussion will delve into the underlying motivations driving such initiatives in Iran and compare them to those within the Iranian diaspora. Along this trajectory, this presentation will illuminate the distinctions between modernization and inclusiveness. It will also explore how these two concepts intersect within intercultural collaborations involving musicians from the broader Iranian diaspora. Ultimately, this research seeks to distinguish between imbalanced intercultural encounters that superficially exploit culture for exoticism and those that earnestly strive to establish a new liberal space for creative expression.

Note: This talk is based on a forthcoming chapter "Intercultural Music in Iran and its Diaspora: A path to inclusiveness or an opportunity for modernization" which is scheduled to be published in December 2025 in a book titled "Iran Amplified: One hundred Years of Music and Society," edited by Nahid Siamdoust and Houchang Chehabi.

Hesam Abedini is a performer, composer, improviser, producer, and educator serving as Assistant Professor of Music at Butte College. His work transcends traditional boundaries, seamlessly blending contemporary music, classical Persian music, free improvisation, and computer music. As the founding member of Sibarg, an Intercultural Creative ensemble, he bridges traditional Persian music with jazz influences. His compositions have been performed by renowned ensembles including the JACK Quartet, Atlas Ensemble, Del Sol Quartet, Loadbang, Miolina, and Eclipse Quartet.

Hesam is also the director of "From Isfahan to Irvine," a documentary film sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute. A graduate of the Tehran Music Conservatory, he holds a B.A. in Music Composition with honors from UC San Diego and completed his PhD in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology (ICIT) at UC Irvine as a Roshan and Provost PhD Fellow.

Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

Living systems are in constant motion, from the inner workings of our cells to the synchronized movements of bird flocks. What sets these systems apart is that they are powered by tiny, energy-consuming components that generate their own movement and forces. In this talk, I’ll uncover the hidden rules that govern this dynamic behavior and explore how breaking certain physical symmetries, like the familiar flow of time, allows life to organize itself in unexpected ways. I will show how these discoveries help us understand the intricate patterns inside cells, reveal surprising new properties of living materials, and offer a fresh perspective on the physics that shapes the natural world around us.

Nikta Fakhri is an associate Professor in the Department of Physics at MIT and Physics of Living Systems Group. She completed her undergraduate degree at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran and her PhD at Rice University, Houston, TX. She was a Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellow at Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, Germany before joining MIT. Nikta is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Physics. She is the recipient of the 2018 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Biological Physics, the 2019 NSF CAREER Award, and the 2022 American Physical Society Early Career Award in Soft Matter Research.

The annual "Christine Mona Khademi Lecture" at the Stanford Iranian Studies Program has been made possible through a generous gift from Monib Khademi, MBA '90. In memory of Christine Mona Khademi, B.S. '12, the lecture seeks to support and highlight the work of women in particular who are making substantial contributions to Iranian culture and society in the fields of politics, science, technology, public service, art, or culture.

00:00-03:30: Introduction

03:34-10:03: Monib Khademi Welcome

10:13-49:50: Dr. Nikta Fakhri lecture

49:51-1:25:58: Audience Q&A

Simcha Gross is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, interested in the religious, social, and cultural developments of Jewish communities in the Near East set within their Roman, Persian, and Islamic contexts. He was formerly a member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and is currently an Honorary Fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University and a recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experience Researchers.

In this talk, Dr. Hussein Banai focuses on the procurement of late-Pahlavi Iran’s credibility, and Mohammadreza Shah’s legitimacy, in its diplomatic outreach toward the great powers, especially in the United States. It does so by drawing on official documents, personal notes and correspondence between top-level officials, and other archival materials from the Zahedi collection at the Hoover Archives.

Hussein Banai is an Associate Professor of International Studies in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he is also faculty affiliate in the departments of Political Science, Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, and Central Eurasian Studies. He is also a Research Affiliate at the Center for International Studies at MIT. Banai's research interests lie at the intersection of political thought and international relations, with a special focus on topics in democratic theory, non-Western liberal thought, diplomatic history and theory, US-Iran relations, and Iran’s political development. He has published on these topics in academic, policy, and popular periodicals.

He is the author of Hidden Liberalism: Burdened Visions of Progress in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2020); co-author of two volumes on US-Iran relations: Republics of Myth: National Narratives and the US-Iran Conflict (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) and Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979–1988 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012); and co-editor of Human Rights at the Intersections: Transformation through Local, Global, and Cosmopolitan Challenges (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023). Additionally, he is the Co-Editor of International Studies Review, the flagship review journal of the International Studies Association. From 2018 to 2020, he served as an Associate Editor (for Social Sciences) of Iranian Studies, the journal of the Association for Iranian Studies.

Mehrnoosh Tahani focuses on finding innovative ways to observe and study cosmic and interstellar magnetic fields. As a Banting Fellow, sponsored by Canada with the privilege of choosing any eligible university worldwide, she selected Stanford University, where she also holds a Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) Fellowship. Previously, Mehrnoosh was a Research Associate (Covington Fellow) at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory with the National Research Council Canada. She obtained her PhD from the University of Calgary, having moved to Canada for graduate studies after completing her undergraduate degree at Sharif University in Tehran. Initially drawn to particle physics during her time at Sharif, Mehrnoosh's academic journey took an unexpected turn midway through her doctoral studies. Returning to her lifelong passion for astrophysics—a fascination that began at a young age—Mehrnoosh refocused her research on observing and understanding the cosmos, employing unique interdisciplinary approaches to study cosmic magnetism.

The space between stars is a magnetic soup of electrons, atoms, molecules, ions, and dust grains, known as the interstellar medium (ISM). It is this material that ultimately condenses to form stars, planets, and life. The densest and coldest part of the ISM are the birthplace of stars. However, the exact processes governing star formation within galaxies remain one of astrophysics' most compelling mysteries. To answer this question, we focus on a crucial, yet often overlooked player: magnetic fields. However, observing magnetic fields is not an easy task. In this talk, Dr. Mehrnoosh Tahani will discuss how novel methods of observing and studying magnetic fields are reshaping our understanding of how galaxies evolve to form stars, shedding light on the mysteries of magnetic galaxies.

Mehrnoosh Tahani focuses on finding innovative ways to observe and study cosmic and interstellar magnetic fields. As a Banting Fellow, sponsored by Canada with the privilege of choosing any eligible university worldwide, she selected Stanford University, where she also holds a Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) Fellowship. Previously, Mehrnoosh was a Research Associate (Covington Fellow) at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory with the National Research Council Canada. She obtained her PhD from the University of Calgary, having moved to Canada for graduate studies after completing her undergraduate degree at Sharif University in Tehran. Initially drawn to particle physics during her time at Sharif, Mehrnoosh's academic journey took an unexpected turn midway through her doctoral studies. Returning to her lifelong passion for astrophysics—a fascination that began at a young age—Mehrnoosh refocused her research on observing and understanding the cosmos, employing unique interdisciplinary approaches to study cosmic magnetism.

"The Rebellion of Forms in Modern Persian Poetry" focuses on selected poems chosen for their ability to exemplify significant experimental tendencies within pioneering movements and from individual poets across various periods. By analyzing both the formal and thematic dimensions of these poems, the book offers a fresh perspective on the narrative of modern Persian poetry, elucidating the interplay between radical aesthetic innovations in poetic practice and resistance against political and cultural hegemony within society.

Farshad Sonboldel is the World History and Cultures Librarian at the University of California, San Diego. He earned his Ph.D. in Modern Languages from the University of St. Andrews in the UK, following a Master’s in Persian Language and Literature from the University of Tehran, Iran. In addition to his academic research background and publications in English, he is an award-winning poet, literary critic, and researcher in Persian literature.

He has published four books in Persian, including two collections of poems titled "Metropolis" (2015) and "She'r-e Boland-e Sharayet" (2019), a research monograph titled "Gozaresh-e Nahib-e Jonbesh-e Adabi-e Shahin: Tondar Kia" (2016) discussing the works of an avant-garde Persian poet from the first half of the twentieth century, and an edited volume on current trends in literary criticism in Persian literature titled "Naqd-e Irad." His recently published book, "The Rebellion of Forms in Modern Persian Poetry: Politics of Poetic Experimentation" (Bloomsbury Academic), explores the evolution of poetic forms in modern Persian poetry. Sonboldel is also the editor of MELA Notes, the journal of the Middle East Librarians' Association and the Deputy Editor for Iranian Studies Journal.

A major challenge in engineering and neuroscience is to model, decode, and control the activity of large populations of neurons that underlie our brain’s dysfunctions. Dr. Maryam Shanechi presents her work at the interface of AI, control theory, and neuroscience to develop closed-loop brain-machine interfaces that can address this challenge. These neurotechnologies can help restore lost motor and emotional function in millions of patients with disabling neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders such as major depression.

Maryam Shanechi is Dean’s Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). She is also Founding Director of the newly established USC Center for Neurotechnology. She received her B.A.Sc. degree in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto, her S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, and her postdoctoral training in Neural Engineering and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and UC Berkeley. She conducts research at the intersection of engineering, computation, and neuroscience to develop closed-loop neurotechnology through decoding and control of neural dynamics. She is the recipient of several awards including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, NSF CAREER Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, ASEE’s Curtis W. McGraw Research Award, MIT Technology Review’s Top 35 Innovators Under 35, Popular Science Brilliant 10, Science News SN10, One Mind Rising Star Award, and a DoD Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Award. She is a Fellow of the IEEE and was named a 2023 Blavatnik National Awards Finalist.

About the Christine Mona Khademi Lecture:

The "Christine Mona Khademi Lecture" has been made possible through a generous gift from Monib Khademi, MBA '90, to the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University. In memory of Christine, B.S. '12, the lecture seeks to support and highlight the work of women in particular who are making substantial contributions to Iranian culture and society in the fields of politics, science, technology, public service, art, or culture. We are also grateful to Mr. Khademi for his ongoing support of academic programming promoting peace and democracy in Iran and around the world.

Christine Mona Khademi (1989-2013) graduated from Stanford with a B.S. in biology with honors in 2012. Monib Khademi earned his B.S. from MIT in 1969 and founded the first computer science college in Tehran, Iran in 1973. He earned his MBA from Stanford in 1990 and is the parent of three Stanford graduates. Monib is the founder of Cypress Praxis and has been managing it since 1992.

00:00-02:26: Introduction

02:27-06:00: Monib Khademi Welcome

06:03-39:00 Dr. Maryam Shanechi lecture

Speaker: Bahram Grami

A book talk about the acclaimed Iranian poet, Ahmad Shamlou, with Dr. Bahram Grami. Event is in Persian and was organized on Oct. 5, 2023.

“The book 'Ahmad Shamlou, Behind the Mirror' is not a literary criticism, it is a step toward better knowing Ahmad Shamlou based on reliable sources. It is not a documentary for promoting or defaming him. While Shamlou should be appreciated and praised for his great poetical works, his character and social life is studied because he has been a role model for young generations. This book contrasts with his statement, ‘I live in a glass house and have nothing to hide.’”

Bahram Grami was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. He studied at Tehran University, American University of Beirut and University of Manitoba, Canada, where he received his PhD in plant science and genetics. He served as assistant professor in Iran until he left for the United States in 1985 and became a researcher at the University of California, Davis. His recent work includes the 2022 edition of Flowers and Plants in a Thousand Years of Persian Poetry. He has taught in Hong Kong, Bahrain and China, and has been a consulting editor for flora with the Encyclopedia Iranica.

Recording and production of audio and video were made possible by the CCRMA team and the Icons of Sound Project.

To watch the video recording of these test sessions, please visit our YouTube channel.

Speaker: Tomoyo Chisaka

The second Zahedi Family Fellow lecture by the Spring 2023 Zahedi Fellow, Dr. Tomoyo Chisaka.

Influential literature on Iran-US relations has assessed economic and security issues as having profound impacts on the rise and fall of Mohammad Reza Shah. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways that Iran's domestic institutions, particularly parliamentary politics, influenced the nature of bilateral relations. Findings from the Ardeshir Zahedi papers housed in Hoover Library and Archives and the US National Security Archives indicate that even though the Shah and the US were close allies, parliamentary elections provided a space for the US to contact “moderate” opposition who tried to challenge the Shah’s dictatorship by participating in electoral politics. This communication was facilitated by US concerns about fighting communism within the context of the Cold War, in part because Iran’s opposition knew that only US advocacy would encourage the Shah to co-opt them in parliament in an otherwise illiberal authoritarian environment. A closer look at parliamentary elections in Iran during the Shah’s regime offers important insights into the ways that domestic politics interacted with Iran-US relations, with implications for Iran’s political development.

Dr. Tomoyo Chisaka joined the Iranian Studies Program as the second Zahedi Family Fellow in spring of 2023. Dr. Chisaka is a JSPS postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo, Japan. She was a visiting scholar at the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University during the 2022-2023 academic year. Her dissertation examined parliamentary election management in post-revolutionary Iran. Focusing on the legal functions of the Ministry of Interior and the Guardian Council, the dissertation considered when and how Iran’s Supreme Leader delegates autonomy to the executive headed by the President as related to the management of parliamentary elections.

Speakers: Pamela Karimi

Discussion with Dr. Pamela Karimi about the work of several prominent contemporary women artists and their courageous acts of political activism in the streets of Iran.

Following the tragic murder of Mahsa Amini, Iranian women took to the streets in large numbers to protest. Their bodies were the focus of these demonstrations, with women dancing and spinning their headscarves or anonymous activists installing protest banners or using sanitary pads to cover surveillance cameras in order to prevent state authorities from imposing conservative dress codes on women. The courageous presence of women in public spaces has been a crucial aspect of this revolution, with many instances of women's political activism on the streets taking on characteristics of art production. By entering the realm of visuality and sense-experience, traditionally assigned to art and aesthetics, activism has taken on performative dimensions. However, the "Woman, Life, Freedom" uprising is not the only manifestation of such involvement. For over three decades, Iranian women artists (and, by extension, activists as artists) have engaged in public art activism, creating moments of rupture in everyday life without necessarily declaring an overt political stance. These artists have used guerilla-style tactics such as painting graffiti, playful drifting, and occupying empty urban spaces to assert their right to the city and challenge strict urban regulations. Such innovative practices in busy urban areas are more challenging for women artists than their male counterparts. This presentation highlights the work of several prominent contemporary women artists who have questioned the limitations of public life for women, demanded freedom of expression, and reclaimed the streets through their creative and courageous interventions.

Pamela Karimi received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and is currently a professor at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Karimi is the author of Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran (Routledge, 2013) and Alternative Iran: Contemporary Art & Critical Spatial Practice (Stanford, 2022). She is the co-editor of The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in the Middle East: From Napoleon to ISIS, a collection of important essays published at the height of ISIS attacks on cultural heritage. Karimi has held fellowships from many organizations, including the College Art Association, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and Iran Heritage Foundation at SOAS. More recently Karimi was the co-recipient of a major grant from the Connecting Art Histories Initiative at the Getty Foundation. Co-founder of Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative, Karimi currently serves on the boards of Thresholds Journal (MIT Press) and the Association of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey.

Speakers: Ladan Lari, Leila Pourhashemi, Abbas Milani, Kioumars Ghereghlou

A discussion about "Never Invisible: An Iranian Woman’s Life Across the Twentieth Century" (Mage Publishers, 2023).

Houri Mostofi Moghadam was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1919, descended on her mother’s side from Iranian royalty and on her father’s from a “God-fearing” family of scholars and government administrators. When she was twenty-two, Houri married Mohsen Moghadam, a young man from a merchant family who went on to become a successful businessman, often traveling abroad, while Houri dedicated herself to teaching, charitable public works, and running international women’s associations in Tehran. Together, they also raised three children, in whom Houri was keen to instill the same spirit of industry and self-discipline she had learned from her own parents.

Houri was among the first women to go to university in Iran, working as a teacher for nearly forty years and diligently continuing with her own education in later life, including traveling to the U.S. as a Fulbright Scholar, and, after being forced into exile following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, studying for a PhD at the Sorbonne in Paris. From a privileged social class, with a glamorous, jet-setting lifestyle, Houri was a pioneer, nonetheless, and a feminist for her own time. Through her hard work and frequent acts of bravery—from standing up to sinister intruders to dogged persistence in the face of intransigent officialdom—she made sure that, as a woman, she was never overlooked, never invisible, even when hidden under a dark chador at the Revolutionary Court. It was women like Houri who were the precursors of the young women fighting for equal rights and justice in Iran today.

The resulting memoir tells the fascinating story of her life, with all its ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies, set against the backdrop of an impending revolution that would topple the world she and her family had always known and turn it upside down.

In this video, Houri’s daughter, Ladan Lari, and granddaughter, Leila Pourhashemi, discuss Houri’s life and work, and the extraordinary commitment Houri’s daughter, Mariam Safinia, undertook to make the publication of this memoir possible.

Dr. Kioumars Ghereghlou and Dr. Abbas Milani discuss the importance of the Houri Moghadam archival collection at Stanford, her life in historical perspective, and the process of creating and publishing the memoir.

Conversation is in English and is moderated by Stanford Stein Visiting Writer Laleh Khadivi.

A conversation with prominent Iranian-American business leaders Faraj Aalaei, Siavash Alamouti, Fay Arjomandi, Afsaneh Beschloss, Hamid Moghadam, and Shane Tedjarati about the role of dynamic entrepreneurship, the role of women in the future economy, and the impact of the Iranian diaspora on the transition to a future democratic Iran. The conference was moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani and held April 21, 2023 at Stanford University.

Part of the Iranian Studies series "Prospects and Challenges for Transition to Democracy in Iran": https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/initiatives/series-prospects-and-challenges-transition-democracy-iran

SPEAKERS:

Faraj Aalaei, an Iranian American immigrant and a 40-year veteran of the communications industry, is currently the Founding Managing Partner at Candou Ventures. As an entrepreneur Mr. Aalaei has raised several hundred million dollars for his semiconductor companies from private and public investors, executed several M&A deals and as CEO has taken two previous start-ups, Centillium and Aquantia, through IPO.

Siavash Alamouti is an Iranian American scientist and entrepreneur. He has held senior executive positions in many Fortune 100 and startup companies, and is currently Executive Chairman of the Board at mimik Technology in Oakland, California. Mr. Alamouti was awarded the prestigious Marconi Prize (also known as the Nobel Prize in Communications) in 2022. He is most known as the inventor of the Alamouti Code used in billions of wireless devices.

Fay Arjomandi is the founder and CEO of mimik, the pioneering hybrid edge cloud (HEC) company and has held executive positions in telecom, digital health, software, and augmented reality enterprises. Ms. Arjomandi is also a serial entrepreneur, investor, advisor, author, and advocate for women in tech and equality. She was recognized as one of the most influential women in Silicon Valley by San Francisco Business Week in 2014, was named the Edge Woman of the year in 2020 by the Linux Foundation, and received the Canadian Top 20 Tech Titans Award in 2022.

Afsaneh Beschloss is an economist and leader in the private, public, and multilateral sectors and has focused her career on harnessing the power of sustainable finance to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. A pioneer in climate policy and investments, Ms. Beschloss is the founder and CEO of RockCreek, one of the largest diverse-owned investment firms. The executive roles she has held, including the Treasurer and Chief Investment Officer of the World Bank, has enabled her to work closely with central banks and advise governments and regulatory agencies on global public policy, financial policy, as well as renewable energy.

Hamid Moghadam is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Prologis, the global leader in logistics real estate and a member of the S&P 100. He is a Trustee Emeritus of Stanford University and currently serves on the boards of Stanford Management Company, Stanford Health Care and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, he is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. In its latest ranking, Harvard Business Review voted him as the #17 Best Performing CEO in the world.

Shane Tedjarati is the founder, chairman and CEO of the Tribridge Group, a global investment group applying leading technologies to global megatrends. Mr. Tedjarati was a former president and CEO of the Global High Growth Regions in Honeywell International Inc. He is also a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and the co-founder of its Middle East Leadership Initiative and China Fellowship Program. He is a member of the advisory board of Antai College of Economics and Management and the industry co-chair of China Leaders for Global Operations of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Speakers: Mahnaz Afkhami, Homa Sarshar, and Marjane Satrapi

A discussion with Ms. Mahnaz Afkhami, Ms. Homa Sarshar, and Ms. Marjane Satrapi, moderated by Dr. Mandana Zandian as a part of the conference "Dialogues on Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy" co-hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies, Gozar.org, and KAI on March 25-26, 2023 at Stanford University.

Mahnaz Afkhami is a women's rights activist and author. Homa Sarshar is a journalist, writer, and human rights activist. Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian artist and director.

With more than 30+ panel talks, 24 roundtables, 50+ speakers, and more than 100+ experts and civil society activists, the conference explored challenges and pathways of transitioning from the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to a secular democracy. Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the conference convened a diverse set of thought-leaders, experts, and civil society activists to support dialogue and discourse around the establishment of a new democratic system of governance in Iran.

Learn more about the conference: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/events/conference-dialogues-irans-transition-secular-democracy

Speakers: Hicham Alaoui

A discussion with Dr. Hicham Alaoui (Hicham Alaoui Foundation) and Dr. Abbas Milani (Stanford Iranian Studies) in March of 2023.

Part of the conference "Dialogues on Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy" co-hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies, Gozar.org, and KAI on March 25-26, 2023 at Stanford University.

Dr. Alaoui is the Director of the Hicham Alaoui Foundation Dr. Abbas Milani is the faculty director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University.

With more than 30+ panel talks, 24 roundtables, 50+ speakers, and more than 100+ experts and civil society activists, the conference explored challenges and pathways of transitioning from the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to a secular democracy. Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the conference convened a diverse set of thought-leaders, experts, and civil society activists to support dialogue and discourse around the establishment of a new democratic system of governance in Iran.

Learn more about the conference: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/events/conference-dialogues-irans-transition-secular-democracy

Speakers: Larry Diamond, Michael McFaul, Abbas Milani

A discussion with Professor Larry Diamond (Political Science, Stanford) and Professor Michael McFaul (FSI, Stanford), moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani (Stanford Iranian Studies) in March of 2023.

Part of the conference "Dialogues on Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy" co-hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies, Gozar.org, and KAI on March 25-26, 2023 at Stanford University.

Professor Larry Diamond is the Mosbacher Senior Fellow of Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford. Professor Michael McFaul is the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Dr. Abbas Milani is the faculty director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University.

With more than 30+ panel talks, 24 roundtables, 50+ speakers, and more than 100+ experts and civil society activists, the conference explored challenges and pathways of transitioning from the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to a secular democracy. Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the conference convened a diverse set of thought-leaders, experts, and civil society activists to support dialogue and discourse around the establishment of a new democratic system of governance in Iran.

Learn more about the conference: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/events/conference-dialogues-irans-transition-secular-democracy

Speakers: Allen Weiner, Bailey Ulbricht

A discussion with Professor Allen Weiner (Stanford Law School) and Bailey Ulbricht (Stanford Humanitarian Program), moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani (Stanford Iranian Studies) in March of 2023.

Part of the conference "Dialogues on Iran's Transition to Secular Democracy" co-hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies, Gozar.org, and KAI on March 25-26, 2023 at Stanford University.

Professor Allen Weiner is the director of the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law and the director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. Bailey Ulbricht is Executive Director of the Stanford Humanitarian Program at the Stanford Law School. Dr. Abbas Milani is the faculty director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University.

With more than 30+ panel talks, 24 roundtables, 50+ speakers, and more than 100+ experts and civil society activists, the conference explored challenges and pathways of transitioning from the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to a secular democracy. Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, the conference convened a diverse set of thought-leaders, experts, and civil society activists to support dialogue and discourse around the establishment of a new democratic system of governance in Iran.

Speakers: Mojdeh Shamsaie, Shervin Emami, Abbas Milani, Donya Nasser

Panel discussion of Norooz/Persian New Year, hosted by the Stanford Iranian Studies Program and the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program at Stanford in March 2023. Ms. Mojdeh Shamsaie, Professor Shervin Emami, and Professor Abbas Milani discuss the history and importance of Norooz, how it is celebrated in Iran and around the world, and the challenges it faces in Iran today. Conversation moderated by Stanford MS Health Policy student Donya Nasser.

Speaker: Iran Davar Ardalan

Iran Davar Ardalan discusses the innovative and new Voice AI experience “Freedom Speaks.” This project honors Iranian women using powerful art such as poems, music and more from the past & present—all accessible through Alexa's voice command “Alexa, open Freedom Speaks." Ms. Ardalan also explains how others can be part of an exciting conversation about pushing forward language capabilities by making datasets available in Persian so that even more voices can have true power.

Iran Davar Ardalan is the executive producer of "Freedom Speaks," a voice AI on Amazon Alexa that shares inspiring stories by Iranian women. Ardalan is a senior advisor to Women in Voice, a global non-profit creating women leaders in conversational AI. Ardalan is also National Geographic's executive producer of audio, where she oversees the award-winning podcast series, "Overheard,” the narrative limited series "Into the Depths" as well as new forays into spatial audio via Nat Geo's Soundbank. In September 2022, Ardalan presented “Sounds Like National Geographic” at the Voice2022 summit in Arlington, VA, talking about the future of voice AI as a keeper of wisdom and knowledge of nature and history and culture.

Prior to this, Ardalan was deputy director of the Presidential Innovation Fellowship Program in Washington D.C. and before that a veteran journalist at NPR News for two decades. In May 2014, Davar was the recipient of an Ellis Island Medal of Honor, for individual achievement and for promoting cultural unity. In Fall 2021, through her work at IVOW, (Intelligent Voices of Wisdom) Ardalan launched a conversational AI scholar on Google Assistant to preserve the wisdom and work of her late mother, Islamic scholar, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar into 21st century voice technology.

Speakers: Kian Tajbakhsh

Author Kian Tajbakhsh discussed his most recent book, "Creating Local Democracy in Iran: State Building and the Politics of Decentralization." With a combination of historical, political, and financial field research, it explores the multifaceted dimensions of local power and how various ideologically opposed actors shaped local government as an integral component of authoritarian state building. The Q&A session includes Dr. Abbas Milani (director of Iranian Studies Program at Stanford) and Dr. Michael A. McFaul, (director of Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies).

*The audio quality improves in the first 20 seconds of the talk.

Kian Tajbakhsh (Ph.D. Columbia 1993) is a Senior Advisor at Columbia Global. In this role, Dr. Tajbakhsh works on university-wide initiatives focused on global migration and is the Coordinator of the Committee on Forced Migration. He is also a Fellow with Columbia’s Committee on Global Thought where since 2017 he has taught the core course in the Global Thought MA program “Globalization and the Problems of World Order.” From 2016-2018 he was Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia. His book Creating Local Democracy In Iran: State-Building and the Politics of Decentralization was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. Before joining Columbia, Tajbakhsh worked for fifteen years as an international expert in urban policy and local government reform; democracy and human rights promotion. Reflecting his commitment to democracy and human rights, Tajbakhsh was the Open Society (Soros) Foundation’s representative in Iran in the 2000s, where he directed several initiatives aimed at strengthening civil society. Tajbakhsh was among the pro-democracy activists arrested and detained by the Iranian government during the Green Movement protests in 2009 and released as part of the 2016 Iran/P5+1 Nuclear Deal.

Speakers: Mohsen Yalfani, Shabnam Tolouei

A discussion with Mohsen Yalfani about his life, work, and the recent reading of his play “Diaspora,” directed by Shabnam Tolouei at Stanford University. Ms. Tolouei joined the conversation as well. Discussion is in Persian.

Mohsen Yalfani was born in 1943 in Hamadan, Iran. He wrote his first plays in his last year in high school and submitted one to the Center for Dramatic Arts in Tehran and won a prize for it. At the age of 18 he moved to Tehran, and while studying at the Teachers' Training College, another of his plays won the same prize. This play was staged in the major theater in Tehran in 1966.

Yalfani wrote several one act plays that were published in literary magazines and produced for Iranian television. In 1970 he wrote “The Teachers” which was staged in Tehran. The play was stopped by the Shah’s SAVAK and Yalfani along with the director, Saeid Soltanpoor, were arrested and spent three months in prison. Henceforth, all of Yalfani’s plays were prohibited from being staged or published.

In 1973, while collaborating with the Iran Theatre Association, he was arrested, along with his coworkers and friends, and imprisoned for four years. In prison, he translated and adapted the book Voice and the Actor by Cicely Berry and wrote his one-act play “On the Beach.”

When released in 1978, Yalfani collaborated with the Iranian Writers' Association (of which he was elected as a member of the secretariat). After the Islamic Regime’s crackdown on democratic associations, Yalfani left Iran, in disguise, and sought political asylum in France.

Shabnam Tolouei is an award-winning actress, playwright, and director. Born in Tehran, she was forced into exile in 2004 and became a naturalized French citizen in 2019. She has studied filmmaking in Tehran, Bagh-Ferdos Film School and Theatre Studies at Université Paris X, Nanterre, France.

She has been writing short stories for cultural magazines since 1990, acting and writing plays since 1993, and teaching acting for camera since 2001. She continues her career outside Iran as an actress, filmmaker, and playwright.

Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.

Speaker: Houchang Chehabi

Dr. Houchang Chehabi discusses his new research work on Reza Shah and his family's exile in Mauritius.

In 1941 Reza Shah and most of his family were exiled by the British to the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. They remained there for six months. This talk discusses the circumstances of the royal family's long trip from Bandar Abbas via India to Mauritius, their reception by the colonial authorities of the island, and their ambiguous relations with local Mauritian society against the background of the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean during the Second World War.

Dr. Houchang Chehabi is a Visiting Professor at UCLA and Emeritus Professor of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University.

Speaker: Mona Khademi

Mona Khademi will examine the extraordinary life of Laura Barney and her deep and enduring connections with Iranians and Iran, and their impact on her life. Laura Barney learned Persian, traveled to Iran in 1906, visited several cities there, and met many Iranian dignitaries and government officials. She also met Iranian officials and scholars outside of Iran.

Laura Barney was born in Ohio in 1879 but lived much of her life in Paris. She was introduced to the Baha’i Faith in 1900 in Paris and accepted its teachings. This sudden and profound change in the life of this young woman would have lasting consequences throughout the rest of her long life. She traveled to Akka, Palestine, the same year and met the son of the founder of the Baha’i faith, Abdu’l-Baha, who was then confined to prison. She compiled a book based on his responses to questions she posed to him titled Some Answered Questions, which was published in 1908 in three languages and became a major Baha’i book.

Laura Barney’s humanitarian activities reflected her spiritual beliefs in the equality of men and women, world peace, and the oneness of humankind. She promoted these principles through her selfless work with the League of Nations and the International Council of Women, and later with the United Nations. She used her social privileges and blessings to become a feminist, global thinker, and peace builder. For her services to France, she was named Chevalier and later Officer of the Legion of Honors.

Mona Khademi received her BA from Pahlavi University (today’s Shiraz University), Master's Degree in Arts Management from the American University, and has worked towards a PHD degree at Imperial College in London.

As an independent researcher, Khademi has presented papers at conferences in Switzerland, Italy, Spain, England, and several cities in the US. Her articles have been published in several journals and magazines, quarterlies, and as chapters of books.

Khademi started her research about the life of Laura Clifford Dreyfus-Barney in 2000 and has presented papers and published articles on this subject. Based on this research, she wrote the full biography titled "The Life of Laura Barney" which was published in June 2022.

Mona Khademi is the Director of International Arts Management Consulting in Washington, D.C. Through her consulting firm, she promotes global understanding through exchange of arts and cultural programs. Her areas of interest include development and management of international cultural and arts programs. She is a member of the American Alliance of Museums.

Speaker: Homa Sarshar

Homa Sarshar discusses her new book "A Narrative of Endurance." She also touched on the Iranian women’s movement and demonstrations organized by the Iranian diaspora in support of protests in Iran over the past four decades. This talk is in Persian.

About the book:

“One can find and obtain knowledge, albeit incomplete, of the footprints of nations and people in cemeteries discovered hundreds of years after their presence in the region. Years later, when a curious passer-by reaches the city of angels and visits each of the cemeteries in the city, they will know that at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, immigrants lived in the city, among them numerous artists, intellectuals, academics, geniuses, political activists, and tireless fighters, who had departed their country or had escaped the prison of the Islamic Republic when the candle of the existence of some of them was soon extinguished. The tombstones of their eternal resting place, each in the cemeteries of Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris, London, and other cities, narrate a great historical migration, and so great that counting them all is no easy feat. The name of each of these greats, buried in foreign soil, reminds that passer-by of what happened to this immigrant tribe and the narrative of their legacy.”

Homa Sarshar is a published author, award-winning journalist, writer, and media personality. She is the author of several books and the editor of eleven other volumes, including five volumes of the Iranian Women's Studies Foundation Journal and four volumes of "The History of Contemporary Iranian Jews." Her book "Sha’ban Jafari" was the number one best seller Persian book in Iran and abroad in the year 2003.

From 1964 to 1978, she worked as a correspondent, reporter, and columnist for Zan-e Ruz weekly magazine and Kayhan daily newspaper in Iran. During this period, she also worked as a television producer, director, and talk show host for National Iranian Radio & Television. In 1978, Sarshar moved to Los Angeles where she resumed her career as a freelance journalist, radio and television producer, and on-air host.

An established women’s rights activist, she served a five-year term on the board of the Iranian Women Studies Foundation, has worked with Human Rights Watch, her two-volume memoir ("Dar Koocheh Paskoocheh Ha-ye Ghorbat") was the first publication of a Jewish Iranian memoir, one of the first Persian memoirs after the revolution published outside Iran, as well as one of the very few examples of memoir-writing by an Iranian woman at the time of its publication.

In 1995, she founded the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History (CIJOH) in Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization that gathered over 1,600 historically significant photographs and documents, and recorded over 120 oral interviews with elders and leaders of the community.

In 2006, she founded Honar Foundation to provide social and financial support to all Iranian American artists in need to ensure that these unique talents are served in the best way possible and their lives are improved.

Throughout her 50-year career with Iranian and Iranian-American print, radio, and television, Sarshar has done more than 3000 interviews and has produced and anchored as many radio and television programs. She has also written, directed, and produced a collection of twenty video documentaries on exiled Iranian writers, poets, and artists, some of which have been acquired by the Library of Congress for the library’s permanent audiovisual archive.

Speaker: Shirin Ebadi

The Iranian Studies Program screened a new documentary “Shirin Ebadi: Until We Are Free” about the Nobel Peace laureate’s mission to bring justice to the people of Iran. Dr. Ebadi held a post screening discussion live-translated to English and moderated by Dr. Abbas Milani.

The event was introduced by Dr. Abbas Milani. Hamid Moghadam welcomed guests and spoke about Shirin Ebadi's life and work. Dean Debra Satz, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, and Professor of Philosophy, spoke about the universality of human rights and Iranian women's fight for equality and justice. Professor Michael McFaul, the director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute, closed the event.

Shirin Ebadi is an author and lawyer, and was the first female judge in Iran. She has lived in exile in London since 2009. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts to promote democracy and human rights, especially those of women and children in Iran.

Ebadi was a judge in Iran until 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution, when she was no longer allowed to work as a judge. She co-founded the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child in 1994 and co-founded the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) in 2002 with other lawyers to assist those working towards promoting democracy. After her Nobel Prize in 2003, she co-founded the Nobel Women's Initiative in 2006, and used some of her prize money to support DHRC. In 2008, the Iranian government closed down DHRC by raiding her office, which by then had 30 lawyers working on cases. While she was traveling abroad, her professional archives and personal belongings were confiscated, and her husband and her sister arrested and imprisoned on spurious charges. She published her memoir, "Until We Are Free," in 2016 detailing her fight for human rights in Iran.

The film “Shirin Ebadi: Until We Are Free,” written and directed by the award-winning filmmaker Dawn Gifford Engle, tells Ebadi’s story of courage and defiance in the face of a government out to destroy her, her family, and her mission: to bring justice to the people and the country she loves. The Iranian government would end up taking everything from Shirin Ebadi–her marriage, her home, even her Nobel Prize medallion–but the one thing it could never steal was her spirit to fight for justice and a better future for the women of Iran.

Read more about the film: https://www.peacejam.org/film/shirin-ebadi-until-we-are-free

The event was co-sponsored by the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University.

Speaker: Mohammad Rasoulof

The film screening of There Is No Evil was followed by a discussion with the film's director, Mohammad Rasoulof. The talk is in Persian with live English translation.

About the film:

Filmed in secret and banned in its home country, Mohammad Rasoulof’s Golden Bear-winning film is an anthology of four short stories, each focused on a person affected by the capital punishment system in a country that commits more executions per capita than anywhere else on Earth.

About the director:

Mohammad Rasoulof was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1972. He is an independent director, writer, and producer. He studied sociology. Rasoulof started his filmmaking with documentaries and short films. For his first film Gagooman (The Twilight, 2002) Rasoulof won the prize for the best film at the Fajr Film Festival in Iran. After his second film Jazireh Ahani (Iron Island, 2005) he began to have problems with the censorship system in Iran and his possibilities for the further production and screening of films were strongly limited or prohibited. To this date Mohammad Rasoulof has produced five feature films which none of have been shown in Iran due to the censorship, while his films are enjoyed by a broad audience in cinemas and festivals outside of Iran. Until 2010 Rasoulof mostly used metaphoric forms of storytelling as his means of expression in his films. Since then, he has shifted to using more direct forms of expression. In March 2010 Rasoulof was arrested on set at a filming location together with Jafar Panahi while they were directing a film together. In the following trial, he was sentenced to six years in jail. This sentence was later reduced to one year. He was then released on bail and is still waiting for the sentence to be executed. Mohammad Rasoulof has won many prizes for his films. In 2011, he won the prize for best director in Un Certain Regard for his film Bé Omid é Didar (Goodbye, 2011) at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2013 he won the FIPRESCI Prize in Cannes for the film Dast-Neveshteha-Nemisoozand (Manuscripts Don't Burn, 2013) from the International Federation of Film Critics in Un Certain Regard. In 2017 he won the best film Prize in Cannes for the film Lerd (A Man of Integrity, 2017) in Un Certain Regard. He won the prize Golden Bear for the film Sheytan Vojood Nadarad (There Is No Evil, 2020) at the Berlin Film Festival 2020.

Speaker: Hamed Esmaeilion

Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion discusses his award-winning novels written in Persian, as well as his moving memoir about the loss of his wife and daughter in the downing of flight PS752 by the Islamic Republic of Iran on January 8, 2020. Introduction by Dr. Abbas Milani.

Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion was born in Kermanshah, Iran and grew up during the Iran-Iraq war that ravaged the western part of Iran, including his hometown.

Hamed earned his doctorate in dentistry in 2001. He married Parissa, a university classmate, and they opened a small dental practice in Tehran. In 2010, they moved to Canada when their daughter Reera was six months old and opened an independent practice just north of Toronto.

While in Iran, Hamed published four novels that earned him several awards from the top Iranian literary circles. His first novel, Thyme is Not Pretty was published in 2009 and won the Hooshang Golshiri award for best short story collection. His third book titled Dr. Datis was published in 2012 and was awarded the Hooshang Golshiri award for best novel. Gamasyab Has No Fish was published in 2014 and was critically acclaimed and subsequently banned by the Islamic Republic authorities. The novel was later translated and published in Spanish by a Mexican publisher. After being black-listed by the Islamic Culture and Guidance Ministry, Hamed published his next novel The Blue Toukan in the United Kingdom.

On January 8, 2020, Hamed lost his wife and nine-year old daughter who were aboard the Ukrainian flight PS752 that was shot down by IRGC missiles over the skies of Tehran. In the aftermath of the tragedy, he published his memoir It Snows in This House.

Before the downing of flight PS752, Hamed was working on two novels, The Fractured Diaries of the Chancellor and The Summer with Five Bullets. He completed and published the last three books under the label Pareera Publishing that he founded in honor of his wife and daughter.

Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.

Speakers: Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion and Babak Payami

The Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies held a special screening of award-winning director Babak Payami’s new documentary "752 Is Not a Number" about the unprecedented downing of a passenger flight leaving Tehran airport by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. The film follows Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion’s struggles with grief and his fight for justice after losing his wife and daughter on flight PS752. Dr. Esmaeilion read excerpts from his memoir about the tragedy, "It Snows In This House." Mr. Payami and Dr. Esmaeilion discussed the film and answered questions after the screening. Introduction by Dr. Abbas Milani.

Babak Payami was born in Tehran in 1966 and grew up in Iran and Afghanistan before leaving for Europe and subsequently Canada. He enrolled in the Cinema Studies program at the University of Toronto and eventually returned to Iran in 1998 where he wrote, produced, and directed his debut feature film "One More Day." He later wrote, directed, and co-produced with Marco Mueller, his second feature film "Secret Ballot," which went on to compete in the official program of the Venice International Film Festival in 2001 and earned him several accolades in Venice, including the Best Director award.

In 2002 he began production on "Silence Between Two Thoughts" which he wrote, directed, and produced in remote areas of eastern Iran close to the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. All of the original material for the film was confiscated by the Iranian government and Babak was forced into exile in 2003.

Babak has produced and directed numerous projects and has taught at the Ludwigsburg Film Academy in Germany and conducted workshops in Italy and North America. He was the creative director of the Media Studio at Fabrica. The Imagisti Creative Studio is the convergence of Payami’s work as an independent artist. Based in Toronto, Imagisti is a hub for young creative talent offering a unique array of acting and directing training classes, film and music production workshops, and artist coaching and branding programs.

Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion was born in Kermanshah, Iran and grew up during the Iran-Iraq war that ravaged the western part of Iran, including his hometown.

Hamed earned his doctorate in dentistry in 2001. He married Parissa, a university classmate, and they opened a small dental practice in Tehran. In 2010, they moved to Canada when their daughter Reera was six months old and opened an independent practice just north of Toronto.

While in Iran, Hamed published four novels that earned him several awards from the top Iranian literary circles. His first novel, "Thyme is Not Pretty" was published in 2009 and won the Hooshang Golshiri award for best short story collection. His third book titled "Dr. Datis" was published in 2012 and was awarded the Hooshang Golshiri award for best novel. "Gamasyab Has No Fish" was published in 2014 and was critically acclaimed and subsequently banned by the Islamic Republic authorities. The novel was later translated and published in Spanish by a Mexican publisher. After being black-listed by the Islamic Culture and Guidance Ministry, Hamed published his next novel "The Blue Toukan" in the United Kingdom.

On January 8, 2020, Hamed lost his wife and nine-year old daughter who were aboard the Ukrainian flight PS752 that was shot down by IRGC missiles over the skies of Tehran. In the aftermath of the tragedy, he published his memoir "It Snows in This House."

Before the downing of flight PS752, Hamed was working on two novels, "The Fractured Diaries of the Chancellor" and "The Summer with Five Bullets." He completed and published the last three books under the label Pareera Publishing that he founded in honor of his wife and daughter.

Speaker: Dr. Hamid Najafi

Dr. Hamid Najafi discusses his new book "The Battles of a Judge." The book was written by Dr. Najafi and his late father, Dr. Hossein Najafi.

From 1946 to 1979, Hossein Najafi served at the Justice Ministry of Iran. He started in an entry level judicial position after law school and rose to lead the Justice Department as a minister during the most tumultuous months of the Iranian Revolution.

The book is his firsthand recollection of the legal cases and judgments he worked on during 33 years of service to his country. The book includes some of the most critical cases brought to the Justice Department during the Shah’s time and culminated in Dr. Najafi’s imprisonment by the Islamic revolutionaries and his eventual release under unprecedented circumstances.

The writings depict a real, unbiased portrayal of the Justice Department, those in positions of power who tried to sway his judgements to their benefit, and illustrate how he never flinched in the pursuit of what he believed to be the uncompromised delivery of justice.

Dr. Najafi’s never-before-told description of the events include numerous meetings with the Shah–many of which were private–during the most fateful and consequential months of Iran’s contemporary history. This book is essential reading for those interested in the recent history of Iran and, most importantly, to those working today, or planning to work in the future, in justice departments in Iran or elsewhere.

Dr. Hamid Najafi, received his doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1983 and has worked as a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley for 40 years, primarily in wireless communications. He currently runs two startups while pursuing his beloved hobby of singing. He collected the writings of his late father, Dr. Hossein Najafi, and co-wrote portions of this book.

Speaker: Arash Azizi

"Pahlavi Iran, alongside Turkey, was a rare case of a Muslim-majority state to have consistent relations with Israel. Much of existing literature often discusses this as an aspect of Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s Policy of Periphery. But the Shah’s relations with Israel were in line with his foreign policy conception of “National Independent Policy” and part of a careful balancing act that aimed to stake out a unique place for Iran in the global Cold War. Following the 1967 war, the Shah publicly criticized Israel and demanded its withdrawal from the occupied territories while Iran also maintained clandestine ties to the PLO and restored its ties to the leading Arab nation of Egypt. The Shah’s vision of Iran as a Muslim country and his opposition to remnants of European colonialism also motivated Iran’s policy in this era.

Basing itself on a study of the Ardeshir Zahedi papers at the Hoover Library & Archives—which include accounts of Iran’s diplomatic meetings with countries such as Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia—this study attempts to flesh out the formation and execution of Iranian policy on the Arab- and Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the 1967-79 period."

Arash Azizi, a PhD candidate in History and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University (NYU), will be the first Zahedi Family Fellow at Stanford University, joining in spring 2022. His dissertation charts the history of Communist internationalism in the Middle East as part of the Global Cold War. Focusing on the ties between the Communist parties of Iran and Iraq, the dissertation looks at their transnational collaboration, their unique stance on Israel/Palestine and their rivalry with the New Left and Islamists. It looks to show how the Cold War was waged in the Middle East, not only by distant superpowers but by local actors such as the communists and their opponents such as the Shah of Iran.

Speaker: Saeid Golkar

Ayatollah Khamenei is replacing the Islamic Republic's old cohort of specialists with newly indoctrinated technocrats, preparing the regime for a swift succession. In addition, reconfiguration of political elites is shifting the power equilibrium in the Islamic Republic, facilitating greater coordination between deep and visible states.

Saeid Golkar is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Concurrently, he is a non-resident Senior Fellow on Middle East Policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) and The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in the UK.

Speakers: Mahnaz Afkhami, Ali Banuazizi, Mandana Zandian

Scholars reflect on Ehsan Yarshater's remarkable contributions and lasting impact on the study of Iranian history, literature, culture, and the arts. Dr. Yarshater (1920-2018) was Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University, the founder and director of Columbia’s Center for Iranian Studies, and the founding editor of the Encyclopædia Iranica. In 2016, he was awarded the Bita Prize in Persian Arts from the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University.

Mahnaz Afkhami – Yarshater's Impact on The Foundation for Iranian Studies

The pioneering work of the Foundation for Iranian Studies (FIS) began in 1981. It was a time of loss and confusion⁠—a characteristic of revolution and exile⁠—but even more challenging, a time of division, anger, and animosity among the diaspora. Ehasan Yarshater provided pivotal support in a variety of areas of the Foundation's work, especially by sharing and supporting the idea that the prevailing battle against all that was Persian in Iran's history, literature, and the arts was an existential threat to the self-definition of Iranians. He assembled a substantial research library without which the FIS journal, Iran Nameh (ed. Jalal Matini), could not fulfill its purpose. Ms. Afkhami will provide a brief summary of the interaction and collaboration between the team at FIS and Dr. Yarshater's expanse of interests and initiatives.Mahnaz Afkhami

Ali Banuazizi – Yarshater's Formative and Lasting Contributions to Iranian Studies

A brief overview of Professor Ehsan Yarshater’s lifetime contributions to the study of Iranian history and culture. He was not only the leading scholar of his generation in several areas of Iranian studies, but one who devoted his entire professional life to building institutions and initiating projects with lasting impact. With examples drawn from the recently published collection of Yarshater’s notes and reflections, the talk will also illustrate how widely he cast his eyes—beyond his own intellectual pursuits—on various aspects of Iran’s history, popular culture, and politics, offering constructive criticisms to advance the work of others.Ali Banuazizi

Mandana Zandian – Understanding Yarshater Through His "Diaries"

Diaries contains a series of notes written by Dr. Ehsan Yarshater—the most prominent Iranian studies scholar of our time— over a period of 26 years (1986-2012) for the journals Irannameh and Iranshenasi (ed. Jalal Matini). Yarshater's notes narrate his observations and evaluations in many thematic areas related to the study of Iran including various historical and political perspectives, as well as his comprehensive knowledge of Persian language, literature, and culture in different historical periods. Dr. Zandian discusses Diaries and Professor Yarshater's contribution to Persian literature, culture, and art.

The Clash of Values provides groundbreaking empirical data to demonstrate how the collision between Islamic fundamentalism and liberal nationalism explains the region’s present and will determine its future. Analyzing data from over 60,000 face-to-face interviews of nationally representative samples of people in seven countries—Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey—Moaddel reveals the depth and breadth of the conflict of values.

Dr. Mansoor Moaddel studies religion, ideology, political conflict, revolution and social change. His work currently addresses the causes and consequences of human values. He has carried out values surveys in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey. His latest survey project focused on a cross-national comparative analysis of religious fundamentalism in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey. He is currently engaged in a comparative cross-national panel survey in Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey in order to understand the dynamics of change in values and political engagements. His previous empirical research project was a comparative historical analysis of ideological production in the Islamic world in which he studied Islamic modernism in Egypt, India, and Iran between the late nineteenth century and early twentieth; liberal nationalism in Egypt, anti-clerical secularism in Iran, liberal Arabism and pan-Arab nationalism in Syria and Iraq in the first half of the twentieth century; and Islamic fundamentalism in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, and Syria in the second half. Moaddel’s teaching interests are in the areas of values survey, sociology of ideology, sociology of religion, political conflict and revolution, terrorism and political violence, religion and politics in the Middle East and North Africa, and statistics.

Speaker: Nicolas Gorjestani

Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran's prime minister in the early 1950s, was one of the most consequential national leaders of the twentieth century. Based on his recent book, Nicolas Gorjestani will examine Mosaddegh's life story, resistance strategy, governance, reform record, and overthrow.

Mosaddegh locked horns with Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower in 1951-1953 over the nationalization of Iran's oil industry. In the event, Mosaddegh was overthrown in the first post-WWII regime change organized and supported by the British MI6 and the American CIA.

The book combines insightful memoir, strategic analysis, economic assessment, and historical review based on primary sources in Iran, the UK, the US and the World Bank.

Nicolas Gorjestani is a former senior official of the World Bank with economic development experience spanning more than four decades in countries undergoing transformational change. Born in Iran of Georgian heritage, Nicolas lives in Washington, DC.

In the age of imperialism Iran was one of only a handful of non-Western states that maintained their sovereignty. However, as in other places such as the Ottoman Empire, China, and Siam, this sovereignty was punctured by unequal treaties that granted certain Western powers extraterritorial rights. These rights were justified by the absence of a rational legal system that would safeguard the rights of foreigners. To regain full sovereignty, therefore, Iranians had to give themselves a modern legal system. This talk traces the development of Iran's punctured sovereignty and efforts to restore sovereignty through legal reform from the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 to the abolition of the capitulations in 1928.

Dr. Houchang Chehabi is a Professor of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, and an honorary professor in the School of History of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. His most recent book is Onomastic Reform: Family Names and State Building in Iran (Boston: Ilex Foundation, 2020).

The film screening of Immigrant Stories: Iranian-Americans of Silicon Valley was followed by a conversation with the film's co-directors, Nima Naimi, Alireza Sanayei, and Julian Gigola. 

About the documentary:

Iranian Americans have achieved remarkable success across all professional fields, with many recognized internationally for their outstanding contributions. This film tells the first-hand immigration stories of several Iranian-Americans, covering 3 generations and over a dozen personal stories, and how Iranian-Americans have become one of the most successful diasporas in the U.S.

About the co-directors:

Nima Naimi is a first generation Iranian-American film director born and raised in the San Francisco, Bay Area. He has studied film in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, receiving his BFA degree in Motion Picture Directing at Columbia College Hollywood. While in college he directed a music video for European pop-star Benny Cristovao, which was nominated for an MTV European Music Award in 2012. Nima moved back to San Francisco after college and began his own production company, Spirit Film Productions Inc., where he’s been creating video content and marketing ads for Silicon Valley startups for the past 9 years.

Alireza Sanayei, Co-Founder and director of Spirit Film Productions, studied animation in Iran. He started his career at the age 15 designing characters for IRIB2. He moved to San Francisco in 2013, and changed his major to film production. Alireza joined Nima and Julian to form Spirit Film Productions Inc. in 2017, where they began directing and producing “Immigrant Stories: Iranian-Americans of Silicon Valley,” a feature documentary about the life stories of 3 generations of Iranian-Americans. Under Spirit Film Productions, Ali has also made videos with several tech companies such as Pear VC, Google & Aurora Solar.

Julian Gigola started his videography career after immigrating to the United States at the age of 17. He pursued his passion for photography by making several music videos, advertisements and creating websites. Soon after he joined Nima and Ali to co-direct the feature documentary, “Immigrant Stories: Iranian-Americans of Silicon Valley.”

Naghmeh Sohrabi and Arash Davari

This talk reconstructs rumors and demonstrations in 1968 around the death of Gholamreza Takhti, Iran's beloved gold-winning wrestling champion, recentering them in the history of the 1979 revolution and the global 1960s. The account of the demonstrations provided here explains a mobilization tactic used to great effect in the lead up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution: the staging of protests on the fortieth day of mourning. Locating this tactic in 1968, at a moment of global protest, and before ideological disputes between leftists and Islamists congealed in Iran, casts a spotlight on the indeterminate quality of the revolution as a lived event. The authors argue that discussions of “global 1968,” and approaches to global history more broadly construed, must account both for the local specificity and the global echoes signaled by events like the Takhti demonstrations.

Naghmeh Sohrabi is the Charles (Corky) Goodman professor of Middle East History and the Director for Research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. She is working on her second book about the revolutionary generation in Iran tentatively titled The Intimate Lives of a Revolution: Iran 1979. Her research on the revolution has received fellowships and grants from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Academy in Berlin. She is currently the president of the Association for Iranian Studies.

Arash Davari is assistant professor of Politics at Whitman College. His research and teaching interests include modern, postcolonial, and contemporary political theory; history and theory; aesthetics and politics; and state formation and social change in the Middle East, with a focus on modern Iran. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently completing a book manuscript about the 1979 revolution in Iran that situates those events in the context of global transformations in the 1970s and political theory.

Speaker: Sahand Abidi

Sahand Abidi is an essayist and critic. He studied drama at the fine arts faculty of Tehran University. He worked as a playwright, dramaturge, assistant director and actor in theatre, and taught courses on the history of theater. He has worked in different capacities on numerous films, documentaries and plays. Many of his essays on aspects of modern Iranian theatre, cinema, and literature (on Beyzaie, Chubak, Golestan, Kimiai, Nalbandian, etc.) have been published in various journals and books. He was a panelist in Stanford’s conference celebrating the life and work of Bahram Beyzaie.

This talk is in Persian.

Speaker: Ameneh Yousefi

Ameneh Yousefi was born in Hamedan city in Iran. She received her Doctoral in Persian Literature from the University of Karaj. She has done several auditorial, visual and animated projects as an author for Local National Broadcasting. She currently teaches Persian Literature in Ganjname University in Hamedan City and is researching the representation of intellectual figures in ten contemporary Persian novels. Her talk covers the inter-textual relations between words and images in Ebrahim Golestan’s films and fiction.

This talk is in Persian.

Narges Mohammadi in conversation with Darius Rejali and Abbas Milani.

Narges Mohammadi is Deputy Director of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC). She was elected as President of the Executive Committee of the National Council of Peace in Iran, a broad coalition against war and for the promotion of human rights. She has campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty in Iran and was awarded the Per Anger Prize by the Swedish government for her human rights work in 2011. In a two volume study, called White Torture, she underscores how solitary confinement is indeed an insidious form of torture. She has interviewed many of Iran’s dissidents who have been subjected to solitary confinement. Based on these conversations, she has also produced a documentary.

Darius Rejali, professor of political science at Reed College, is an internationally recognized expert on government torture and interrogation. Iranian-born, Rejali has spent his career reflecting on violence, specifically, on the causes, consequences, and meaning of modern torture in our world. His award-winning work spans concerns in political science, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, and critical social theory. He is the author of "Torture and Democracy" (2007), "Torture and Modernity: Self, Society, and State in Modern Iran" (1994), and many related articles. He consults as an expert for international scholarly projects on torture prevention, serves as an adviser to nongovernmental organizations that work on torture-related issues, and has submitted expert testimony for Guantanamo (Al Ginco v. Obama) and Abu Ghraib related cases (Al Shimari v. CACI International). He has been interviewed widely, from Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! to David Frost on Al Jazeera, from the BBC to the Washington Post.

Abbas Milani is the Director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a research fellow at The Hoover Institution. He taught at Tehran University, Faculty of Law and Political Science until 1986. He has written and translated many books and articles. Most recently, he edited and wrote the introduction for "A Window into Modern Iran: The Ardeshir Zahedi Papers at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives," and "Saadi and Humanism" with Maryam Mirzadeh.

Speaker: Fereshteh Sadreorafaei

Fereshteh Sadreorafaei was born in Tehran, Iran in 1962. From a young age, she attended the Children and Adolescents' Intellectual Development Center. There, she studied theater and puppetry and staged several puppet shows. From 1974-1976, she was a student at Pars National Ballet under the supervision of Abdullah Nazemi.

Due to the Iranian Revolution and closure of universities, she was unable to acquire a university education. During which time she got married and started a family. She worked as a puppet actress in a children’s TV series, using what she learned from the Intellectual Development Center.

Her first professional theater performance was in 1983, followed by her debut in cinema in 1985.

She went on to narrate and puppeteer in 17 series and films, directed four TV series for children and teenagers, acted in 20 films, and acted in one unreleased TV series. She has collaborated with directors such as Jafar Panahi, Kambozia Partovi, Reza Mirkarimi, Abdolreza Kahani, Mohammad Rasoulov, Maziar Miri, Narges Abyar, Massoud Bakhshi and, in her latest film Ghahraman, Asghar Farhadi.

She has been nominated for and received numerous awards, including several for Café Transit.

About the film:

Written and directed by Kambuzia Partovi (2005).

Synopsis: In a village near Iran's border with Turkey, Reyhan (Fereshteh Sadreorafaei), a young woman with two children, faces a difficult choice when her husband dies. Instead of marrying her brother-in-law (Parviz Parastoei), as required by traditional law, she chooses to support her family by reopening her late husband's restaurant.

Part of Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.

Mangol Bayat has taught Middle Eastern history at several universities, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Iowa, Harvard University, and Shiraz University (formerly Pahlavi University). She is the author of Mysticism and Dissent: Socioreligious Thought in Qajar Iran and Iran's First Revolution: Shi'ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909.