New Books in Iranian Studies

Oct 23 2024 102 ep. 11
New Books in Iranian Studies Podcast artwork

Interviews with authors and scholars about their new books in Iranian and Persian studies.

  Arts  History  Religion & Spirituality
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Arash Azizi, "What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom" (Oneworld, 2024)

Oct 23 2024 56 mins  
On Tuesday 13 September 2022, all Mahsa Amini has planned is a day shopping in Tehran. Her birthday is next week. But she is arrested as she comes out of the subway – the Guidance Patrol deem her hijab inadequate. On Friday she is pronounced dead. By Sunday, women have taken to the streets across Iran, setting their headscarves on fire and cursing the Supreme Leader. Months later

Emrah Yildiz, "Zainab's Traffic: Moving Saints, Selves, and Others Across Borders" (U California Press, 2024)

Oct 22 2024 72 mins  
Emrah Yildiz's new book Zainab’s Traffic: Moving Saints, Selves, and Others Across Borders (University of California Press, 2024) is a masterful ethnographic study that maps the religious, political, and economic traffics from Tehran to just outside Damascus to the shrine of Sayyida Zainab’s tomb. Attending to questions of mobility and immobility of pilgrims and contraband acro

Julia Caterina Hartley, "Iran and French Orientalism: Persia in the Literary Culture of Nineteenth-Century France" (Bloomsbury. 2023)

Oct 02 2024 44 mins  
Today I talked to Julia Caterina Hartley about Iran and French Orientalism: Persia in the Literary Culture of Nineteenth-Century France (Bloomsbury. 2023). New translations of Persian literature into French, the invention of the Aryan myth, increased travel between France and Iran, and the unveiling of artefacts from ancient Susa at the Louvre Museum are among the factors that radi

Cyrus Ali Zargar, "Religion of Love: Sufism and Self-Transformation in the Poetic Imagination of ʿaṭṭār" (SUNY Press, 2024)

Aug 21 2024 57 mins  
Farid al-Din ‘Attar’s writings have greatly influenced Persian Sufism, but what do we know of him as a thinker? Engaging his diverse writings from poetry to stories, Cyrus Ali Zargar’s Religion of Live: Sufism and Self-Transformation in the Poetic Imagination of ‘Attar (SUNY Press, 2024) captures for us some of ‘Attar’s worldviews, especially as it is rooted in a Persia

Farshid Emami, "Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran" (Penn State UP, 2024)

Aug 17 2024 53 mins  
A vibrant urban settlement from mediaeval times and the royal seat of the Safavid dynasty, the city of Isfahan emerged as a great metropolis during the seventeenth century. Using key sources, Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran (Penn State University Press, 2024) reconstructs the spaces and senses of this dynamic city. Focusing on nuances of urban experi

Ibrahim Fraihat, "Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)

Jun 09 2024 71 mins  
Ibrahim Fraihat’s latest book, Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is much more than an exploration of the history of animosity between Saudi Arabia and Iran and its debilitating impact on an already volatile Middle East. It is a detailed roadmap for management and resolution of what increasingly looks like an intractable conflict.

Seyed Ali Alavi, "Iran and Palestine: Past, Present, and Future" (Routledge, 2019)

May 27 2024 24 mins  
In Iran and Palestine: Past, Present and Future (Routledge, 2019), Seyed Ali Alavi (SOAS University of London) surveys the history of the relationship between Iran – and especially the Islamic Republic of Iran - with Palestinian organisations and leadership. It also, quite obviously, deals with Iranian views of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Analysing the connection

Sari Nusseibeh, "Avicenna's Al-Shifā': Oriental Philosophy" (Routledge, 2018)

May 16 2024 63 mins  
Sari Nusseibeh's book Avicenna's Al-Shifā': Oriental Philosophy (Routledge, 2018) deals with the philosophy of Ibn Sina - Avicenna as he was known in the Latin West- a Persian Muslim who lived in the eleventh century, considered one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy. Although much has been written about Avicenna, and especially about his major philosophica

Anita R. Gohdes, "Repression in the Digital Age: Surveillance, Censorship, and the Dynamics of State Violence" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Mar 26 2024 34 mins  
Global adoption of the Internet has exploded, yet we are only beginning to understand the Internet's profound political consequences. Authoritarian states are digitally catching up with their democratic counterparts, and both are showing a growing interest in the use of cyber controls--online censorship and surveillance technologies--that allow governments to exercise control over

Sanjay Subrahmanyam, "Across the Green Sea: Histories from the Western Indian Ocean, 1440-1640" (U Texas Press, 2024)

Mar 26 2024 44 mins  
Across the Green Sea: Histories from the Western Indian Ocean, 1440-1640 (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Sanjay Subrahmanyam presents a history of two centuries of interactions among the areas bordering the western Indian Ocean, including India, Iran, and Africa. Beginning in the mid-fifteenth century, the regions bordering the western Indian Ocean—“the green sea,” a