Programme
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Thursday, July 31 2008
Session 1A | Queen’s Park South| 9:00-10:30 a.m. | Thursday, July 31
Persian Instruction
Chair: M. M. Khorrami, New York University
Ramin Sarraf, National University, USA
The Online Persian Language Program: Challenges and Solutions
Azita Mokhtari, National University, USA
Beyond Borders: Developing Online Task-Based Teaching Materials for Language Learners of Persian
Ludmila Yaneva, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
Bulgarian Textbooks for Teaching Persian Language: Students’s First Contact with the Iranian Identity
Anousha Sedighi, Portland State University
Teaching Persian to Persian Speakers
Session 1B | Queen’s Park North | 9:00-10:30 a.m. | Thursday, July 31
Persian Series 1
Chair: Rudi Matthee, University of Delaware
Mostafa Azkia, Tehran University
The Nature of Rural Development Programs in Iran Before and After the Revolution
Session 1C | Hazelton | 9:00-10:30 a.m.| Thursday, July 31
Workshop: Encounters Between Early Modern Sanskrit and Persian Cultures:
Ethical and Political Texts
Chair: Manan Ahmed, University of Chicago
Pasha Mohamad Khan, Columbia University
Ajay Rao, University of Toronto
Sunil Sharma, Boston University
Dan Sheffield, Harvard University
Audrey Truschke, Columbia University
Session 1D | University East| 9:00-10:30 a.m. | Thursday, July 31
Traces of Memory
Chair: Marta Simidchieva, University of Toronto
Sarah Bowen Savant, Aga Khan University
Remembering the Muslim Conquest of Iran
Mehrdad Shabahang, Ecole Pratique Des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne
The Comparison of Old Iranian Farrah and Shiite Nûr-i Welayat
Bryan Averbuch, Harvard University
The Newly-Discovered Judeo-Persian Letter: Date, Provenance, and Historical Context
Session 2A | Queen’s Park South | 11.00-12.30 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Persian linguistics
Chair: Azita Taleghani, University of Toronto
Mehrdar Naghzguy Kohan, Bu-Ali Sina University
Sociolinguistics Factors Conditioning the Plural in Contemporary Persian
Yasaman Rafat, University of Toronto
A Socio-phonetic Investigation of Rhotics in Persian
Farzaneh Foroodi-Nejad, University of Alberta
& Johanne Paradis, University of Alberta
Transfer between the two Languages in Early Bilinguals from Immigrant Families
Session 2B | Queen’s Park North| 11:00-12:30 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Personal Identiy and Cultural Schizophrenia
Chair: Touraj Atabaki, Leiden University
Houchang E. Chehabi, Boston University
The Introduction of Family Names in Iran
Suzanne Levi-Sanchez, San Francisco Sate University
Iranian Myth and the Social Construct of Narrative Influence
Mansoor Moaddel, Eastern Michigan University
Secularization, State Religiosity, and Cultural Duality Findings from Values Surveys
Session 2C | Hazelton | 11:00-12.30 p.m.| Thursday, July 31
Workshop: Encounters Between Early Modern Sanskrit and Persian Cultures: Practical Arts and Sciences
Chair: Christopher Minkowski, Oxford University
Rajeev Kinra, Northwestern University
Kim Plofker, Brown University
Enrico Raffaelli, University of Toronto
Session 2D |University East| 11.00-12.30 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Arts and Patronage
Chair: Karin Ruehrdanz, Royal Ontario Museum
Denise-Marie Teece, New York University
Vessels of Verse: Persian Anthologies for Quyunlu Patrons
Raya Shani, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Shi‘i-oriented Sufi component in epigraphic Nishapur pottery of the early eleventh century
Maryam Ekhtiar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Isma‘il Jalayer: Mystic Painter of the Naseri Era
Nigel Westbrook, University of Western Australia
The Architecture of the Site Museums in Persepolis and Pasargadae
Session 3A | Queen’s Park South | 2:00-3:30 p.m.| Thursday, July 31
Historical and comparative Linguistics
Chair: Mohammad Mehdi Vahedi, University of Tarbiyat Mudarris
Zohre Zarshenas, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran
Females and Feminine Words in Some Manichean Sogdian Writings
Judith A. Lerner, Independent Scholar, New York
The Persistence of Hellenism: The Sealings on the Bactrian Documents
Mehrnaz Ahmadi Joobaneh, University of Western Ontario
Grammatical gender markers in Persian compared to English, German and Arabic
Soha Safaï, Paris III University
KW Words in Iranian Languages
Session 3B | Queen’s Park North| 2:00-3:30 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Safavid and Mughal Arts and Politics
Chair: Maria Subtelny, University of Toronto
Ann Lucas, University California, Los Angeles
Music Fit for a King: The Changing Role of Music from the Timurid Court to the Safavid Court
Abolghasem Dadvar, Al-Zahra University
Iranian Impacts on Mughal Culture During the 16th and 17th Centuries
Maryam Moazzen, University of Toronto
The Curriculum of Religious Higher Learning in Safavid Isfahan
Abolala Soudavar, Independent Scholar
From Rivalry to Fratricide: Shah Tahmasb and Sam Mirza
Session 3C | Hazelton | 2:00-3:30 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Workshop: Encounters Between Early Modern Sanskrit and Persian Cultures:
Mystical and Metaphysical Texts
Chair: Supriya Gandhi, Harvard University
Muzaffar Alam, University of Chicago
Shankar Nair, Harvard University
Parimal Patil, Harvard University
Session 3D |University East| 2:00-3:30 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Postrevolutionary Constellation
Chair: Mansoor Moaddel, Eastern Michigan University
Kamran Safamanesh, The Urban Research Institute, Tehran
Architectural Environment of the Post-Revolution Tehran
Kambiz Behi, Harvard University
Structure and Process of Legal Change in Post-Revolutionary Iran: The Emergence of New Constitutionalism.
Shahram Kholdi, University of Manchester
Political Memoirs and the Historiography of the 1979 Revolution
Break | 3:30-4:30 | Thursday, July 31
Session 4A | Queen’s Park South | 4:30-6:00 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Theoretical Linguistics
Chair: Mohammad Reza Bateni, University of Tehran
Saera Kwak, Tehran of University, Iran
Negation in Persian
Parviz Parsafar, Yuba College
Syntax, Morphology, and Semantics of Izafah
Mohammad Mehdi Vahedi, University of Tarbiyat Mudarris
A Survey of two types of Alternating Agentive Nominals (in Persian)
Azita Taleghani, University of Toronto
Verbal Complex Predicates in Persian: Evidence from Future and Progressive Tense
Session 4B | Queen’s Park North| 4:30-6:00 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Kerman: an Urban Portrait in Commerce and Competition
Chair: Sussan Babaie, University of Michigan
Discussant: Renata Holod, University of Pennsylvania
Lisa Golombek, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
Ceramics and Demographics: what pottery tells us about Safavid Kerman
Nozhat Ahmadi, Alzahra University, Tehan
Considering the Waqf Documents of Ganj Ali Khan
Rudi Matthee, University of Delaware
Kerman in the later Safavid Period: Political and Economic Conditions
Fariba Kermani, Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization
Looking at the Complexes of the Kerman Bazaar after the Safavid period
James M. Gustafson, University of Washington
The Political Economy of the Kermani Governorship under Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid Mirza Nasir al-Dawla (r. 1880-1892)
Session 4C | Hazelton | 4:30-6:00 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Vistas of Iranian Oikoumene in the Late Antique and Medieval Period
Sponsored by The Association for the Study of Persianate Societies
Chair: Parvaneh Pourshariati, Ohio State University
Discussant: Carlo G. Cereti, University of Rome “La Sapienza”
Richard Payne, Princeton University
Iranian Adelsheilige: East Syrian Martyrology and Aristocratic Memory in Late Antique Iran
Parvaneh Pourshariati, Ohio State University
Parthian Dynastic Families and the Arab Conquest of Iran
Dan D.Y. Shapira, Bar Ilan University
Late Sasanian and post-Sasanian Zoroastrian Apocalypse
Rika Gyselen, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
Arabo-Sasanian Copper: A Mirror on the Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Osmosis in Umayyad Fars
Session 4D |University East| 4:30-6:00 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Iranian Feminism
Chair: Valentine M. Moghadam, Purdue University
Morteza Nouraei, University of Isfahan
TheSocio-political Participation of Female in Iran during 1960-70s: A Critical Study
Charles Kurzman, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
A Feminist Generation in Iran?
Golbarg Bashi, Columbia University
Towards Democratic Feminisms: Lessons for Iran
Session 4E |University East| 4:30-6:00 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Workshop in The Century of Oil (1908-2008)
Chair: Jennifer Jenkins, University of Toronto
Touraj Atabaki, Leiden University
The Making of Working Class in the Iranian Oil Industry
Session 5 | University | 6:30-7:30 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Plenary Lecture in Persian
Chair: Hossein Samei, Emory University
Mohammad Reza Bateni, University of Tehran
Assessing the State of Contemporary Persian
Session 6 | Queen’s Park Ballroom | 8:00-10:00 p.m. | Thursday, July 31
Opening Reception
The Saidi-Sirjani Book Award
The Latifeh Yarshater Award
The Lois Roth Prize
Friday, 1 August 2008
Session 7A | Queen’s Park South| 9:00-10:30 a.m. | Friday, August 1
Scripting Women
Chair: Rivanne Sandler, University of Toronto
Leila Pazargadi, University of California at Los Angeles
The Womb of the Universe: Figuring Woman as the Nation in Goli Taraghi’s ‘Khanah dar Asiman’
Sharareh Frouzesh Bennett, University of California, Irvine
Between Resistance and the Law: Parsipur’s Women Without Men As A Meditation on the Ubiquity of Injustice
Pouneh Saeedi, University of Toronto
Demonization of the Muse: From Rudabeh to Zan-i Lakkatah
Fereshteh Molavi, University of Toronto
Literary Self-disclosure and the Female Discloser
Session 7B | Queen’s Park North| 9:00-10:30 p.m. |Friday, August 1
Are We All Duped by Morality?
Chair: Victoria Tahmasebi, University of Toronto
Victoria Tahmasebi, University of Toronto
To Sex or de-Sex: The Visual Representations of Female Ethical Performativity in Pre- and Post-Revolutionary Iran
Alireza Haghighi, University of Toronto
Hobbes and Machiavelli in Iranian Ethico-political Discourse
Nazli Kamvari, University of Toronto
Sex, Moral Panic, and the Anxieties Surrounding Mut‘ah
Leila Dorostan, City University London
The Institution of Temporary Marriage in Iran
Session 7C | Hazelton | 9:00-10:30 a.m. |Friday, August 1
Encounters Between Early Modern Sanskrit and Persian Cultures:
Moghal and Post-Mughal Translations
Chair: Ajay Rao, University of Toronto
Discussant: Muzaffar Alam, University of Chicago
Audrey Truschke, Columbia University
The Power of Translation: Mughal Reflections on Akbarís Sanskrit-Persian Translation Project
Pasha Mohamad Khan, Columbia University
Giving Flesh: A Story's Circulation Through Sanskrit, Persian and Urdu Texts.
Shankar Ayillath Nair, Harvard University
Preliminary Remarks on the Muntakhab-i Jug Basisht: Mir Findiriski's "Commentary" on the Laghu-Yoga-Vasistha
Session 7D | University East| 9:00-10:30 a.m. | Friday, August 1
Retrospectives On US-Iranian Relations
Chair: Uzi Rabi, Tel Aviv University
Kamrouz Pirouz, Montclair State University
The Truman-Churchill Proposal to Resolve The Iran-U.K Oil Nationalization Dispute
Ramin Asgard, US Consulate General, Dubai
US-Iran Cultural Diplomacy: A Historical Perspective
Hossein Derakhshan, University of London
New York Times versus Iran: News Narratives on Oil and Atom
Break | 10:30-11:00 | Friday, August 1
Session 8A | Queen’s Park South | 11:00-12:30 p.m. | Friday, August 1
Political Prisoners of Iran: Narrating Insubordination, Desiring Truth
Chair: Shahrzad Mojab, University of Toronto
Discussant: Payam Akhavan, McGill University
Shahla Talebi, Arizona State University
A Story of an Archive: Love and Death in Prison Letters
Kaveh Shahrooz, New York-based Attorney
Remembering 1988: A Legal and Political Analysis of the Demand for Accountability
- Shokoufeh Sakhi, York University
- The Arrival of a New Regime: Torture and the Aesthetics of Resistance
Saeed Yousef, University of Chicago
Poetics of Horror: Iranian Poets and the 1988 Mass Executions
Session 8B | Queen’s Park North| 11:00-12:30 p.m. |Friday, August 1
Constructing Iran: cultural production and national identity
Chair: Janet Alexanian, University of California, Irvine
Ida Meftahi, University of Toronto
Raqs-i Milli: Choreographing National Identity in Pre-revolutionary Iranian Dance
Jennifer Gay Breyley, Monash University, Australia
From Qerti to Heya’ati: Youth, Music and Belief in Tehran
Elham Gheytanchi, Santa Monica College
Censored but Wired: Iranian related videos on Youtube and the Internet
Janet Alexanian, University of California, Irvine
Performing identity, constructing the nation: intellectuals in post-revolutionary Iran
Session 8C | Hazelton| 11:00-12:30 p.m. |Friday, August 1
The Eighteenth Century Fracturing of the Persianate World
Chair: Sunil Sharma, Boston University
Discussant: Paul E. Losensky, University of Indiana at Bloomington
Mana Kia, Harvard University
Accounting for Difference: A comparative look at the auto-biographical travel narratives of Muhammad ‘Ali Hazin Lahiji and ‘Abd al-Karim Kashmiri
Rajeev Kinra, Northwestern University
The Place of Place in Early Modern Indo-Persian Comparative Philology
Matthew Smith, Harvard University
A Debate on Authenticity: Literary Return and the Indian Style
Sunil Sharma, Boston University
From Aisheh to Nur Jahan: Women Poets and the Shaping of the Classical Persian Literary Canon
Session 8D | University East| 11:00-12:30 p.m. | Friday, August 1
Literary Ruptures
Chair: Nasrin Rahimieh, University of California, Irvine
Ali Mir-Ansari, The Centre for the Great Encyclopedia of Islam, Tehran
The Transformation of Women's Portrait in Persian Plays
Koorosh Angali, University of Texas at Austin
Sadeq Hedayat: The Source of His Imagery
Wali Ahmadi, University of California, Berkeley
Rupture and Trauma in Contemporary Literature of Afghanistan: The Limits of Dissent
Korosh Hadissi, University of Toronto
Ahmad Shamlu as a Journal Editor
Lunch | 12:30-2:00 p.m.
Session 10A | Queen’s Park South | 2:00-3:30 p.m. | Friday, August 1
Topics in the History of Slavery in Iran
Chair: Pardis Minuchehr, University of Pennsylvania
Thomas M. Ricks, Independent Scholar
Bounde by Slavery: Iran, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean
Nahid Mozaffari, PEN/Independent Scholar
Courtier Eunuchs: The Case of Besharat Khan
Anthony A. Lee, University of California, Los Angeles
Presence and Erasure: Recovering a History of African Slaves in Iran: The Case of Haji Mubarak and Fezzeh Khanum, Servants of Mirza ‘Ali-Muhammad, the Bab
Negin Nabavi, Montclair State University
From Haji Firuz to the Black Harlequin: Slaves and Black Domestic Servants in Iran
Session 10B | Queen’s Park North| 2:00-3:30 p.m. |Friday, August 1
Re-territorialized Lives
Chair: Victoria Tahmasebi, University of Toronto
Maryam Abolfazli, Independent Scholar
A Doreh in Nashville: Acceptance and Rejection of Female Empowerment in the Iranian Diaspora
Vahideddin Namazi, University of Montreal
History of Professional Life of Two Iranian Immigrants in Canada
Foojan Zeine, Institute for Personal Growth
Immigration and Acculturation
Session 10C | Hazelton | 2:00-3:30 p.m. |Friday, August 1
Encounters Between Early Modern Sanskrit and Persian Cultures:
Public Discussion
Chair: Ajay Rao, University of Toronto
Manan Ahmed, University of Chicago
Muzaffar Alam, University of Chicago
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, University of Maryland
Christopher Minkowski, Oxford University
Ramin Jahanbegloo, University of Toronto
Session 10D | University East | 2:00-3:30 P.M. | Friday, August 1
Circular Orientalism
Chair: Mansour Bonakdarian, University of Toronto
Jennifer L. Jenkins, University of Toronto
Excavating Zarathustra: Ernst Herzfeld in Iran
Isabelle Gadoin, Universitè Paris III
The Role of English Artists in the (Re)discovery of Persian Art in 19th Century Britain (1850-1900)
Laetitia Bif, University of London
New Orientalist Narratives from the Natives: Reading More Than Chahdorrt Djavann in Paris
Break | 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Session 11A | Queen’s Park South | 4:30-6:00 p.m. | Friday, August 1
Breaking the Mould: Young Iranian Girls in Transition
Chair: Homa Hoodfar, Concordia University
Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh, Editor-in-chief of Farzaneh
Life after Prison: Young Iranian Women Re-adjusting to Society
Mehri Honarbin-Holliday, Canterbury Christ Church University
Narratives of Autonomy and Resistance: Young Iranian Women’s Struggles to Become Visible
Nadia Aghtaie, University of Bristol
Domestic Violence: Clash between Policy and Religion in relation to Women's Rights in Iran
Session 11B | Queen’s Park North| 4:30-6:00 p.m. |Friday, August 1
Popular Arts and Social Change in Iran
Chair: Kamran Talattof, University of Arizona
Discussant: Houchang Chehabi, Boston University
Kamran Talattof, University of Arizona
Persian Dance in Pre-Revolutionary Movies: Seduction, Sin, and Salvation
Jane Lewisohn, University of London
The Golha Radio Programs (1954-76) and their Impact on Persian Culture and Society
Nahid Siamdoust, University of Oxford
Out of Tune: Islam as a Contested Idiom in Iranian Rap and Pop Music
Gloria Shahzadeh, Independent Scholar and Artist
Cultivating Emotional Bankruptcy: Popular Arts in Pre-revolutionary Iranian Society
Session 11C | Hazelton | 4:30-6:00 p.m. |Friday, August 1
Zoroastrianism and Textual Transmissions
Chair: Richard Foltz, Concordia University
Martin Schwartz, University of California
The Teleological Composition of the Gathas: Pouruchista's Wedding (Yasna 53)
Jean Kellens, College de France, Paris
New Perspectives on the History of the Avestan Text
Carlo G. Cereti, University of Rome “La Sapienza”
Notes on the Transcription of Avestan forms in Pahlavi
Session 11D |University East| 4:30-6:00 p.m. | Friday, August 1
Cinematic Modernity and Musical Nationalism
Chair: Nima Naghibi, Ryerson University
M.R. Ghanoonparvar, University of Texas at Austin
Film Adaptations and Narrative Change in Persian Fiction
Khatereh Sheibani, University of Alberta
The Reel History of Modernity in Bayzai’s Aesthetics
Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, University of London
The Story of a Song: The role of ‘Ey Iran’ in Contemporary Iranian Nationalist Discourse
Negin Djavaherian, McGill University
A Classical Persian Mystical Poem and Theatrical/Architectural Discourse: The Conference of the Birds and Peter Brook’s Theatre
Session 11E | Queen’s Park Ballroom | 6:10-7:10 p.m. | Friday, August 1
Special Plenary Lecture
Chair: Ali Banuazizi, Boston College
Akbar Etemad, Former President, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI)
Iran’s Quest for Nuclear Energy
Discussant: Gholamreza Afkhami, Foundation for Iranian Studies
Session 12 | Queen’s Park Ballroom | 7:30-9:00 p.m. | Friday, August 1
Sneak Peak of the documentary The Glass House
Session 13 | Queen’s Park Ballroom | 9:00-9:30 p.m. | Friday, August 1
Workshop: The Making of The Glass House
Chair: Marjaneh Halati, Omid-e-Mehr Foundation
Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh, Editor-in-chief of Farzaneh
Farnaz Aliakbar-Gordan, Omid-e-Mehr Foundation
Melissa Hibbard, Fictionville Studios
Ladan Zahra Kani, Omid-e-Mehr Foundation
Hamid Rahmanian, Fictionville Studios
Saturday, 2 August 2008
Session 14A | Queen’s Park South | 9:00-10:30 a.m. | Saturday, August 2
Paradise and its Discontents: Eschatological Thought in Isma‘ili, Hekmati, Shaykhi, Babi and Bahai Thought
Chair: Todd Lawson, University of Toronto
Elizabeth Alexandrin, University of Manitoba
Spiritual Birth and Resurrection in the Majālis al-Mu’ayyadiyyah
Jalal Badakhchani, the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London
Notions of Paradise’ in the Ismaili works of Nasir al-Din Tusi.
Jamel Velji, University of California, Santa Barbara
Paradise Postponed: Apocalyptic Containment and the Nizari qiyamat
Session 14B | Queen’s Park North| 9:00-10:30 a.m.| Saturday, August 2
Reading Persian Mystical Texts
Chair: M. R. Ghanoonparvar, University of Texas at Austin
Mahdi Tourage, Colgate University
The Gender of Creativity in the Androcentric Context of Rumi’s Mathnawi
Safoura Nourbakhsh, University of Maryland
Irigaray's Sexual Difference and Sufi Narratives
Eliza Tasbihi, Concordia University
Reading Sabzawari’s Commentary on Rumi’s Mathnawi: A Philosophical Approach
Umberto Cicchetti, Concordia University
Dreams and Visions in the Mathnavi
Session 14C | Hazelton| 9:00-10:30 a.m. |Saturday, August 2
Zoroastrian Configurations
Chair: Parvaneh Pourshariati, Ohio State University
Bahman Moradian, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
The Place of Water in the Avestan Text of Yasna and Its Ceremony
Richard Foltz, Concordia University
Zoroastrianism: The World’s “Original Environmentalist Religion”?
Enrico G. Raffaelli, University of Toronto
The Yashts and the Days of the Zoroastrian Month
Parvonakhon Jamshedov, Tajik-Russian Slavonic University
The Sayod Calendar of Badakhshan
Session 14D | University East| 9:00-10:30 p.m. |Saturday, August 2
Social Policies in Contemporary Iran
Chair: Amir Hassanpour, University of Toronto
Janne Bjerre Christensen, Roskilde University
Changing drug policies in Teheran: Institutionalizing a new social order
Azim Fazlipour, Nanterre University-Paris
Iran Narcotics Control Strategy
Isabel Heck, Université de Montréal
Poor? How women talk about poverty in low-income neighborhoods in urban Iran
Roksana Bahramitash, Université de Montréal
Female-Headed Households and Micro Credit in Iran
Break | 10:30-11:00 a.m. | Saturday, August 2
Session 15A | Queen’s Park South | 11:00-12:30 p.m. | Saturday, August 2
Inbetween Lives and Institutions
Chair: Todd Lawson, University of Toronto
Nobuaki Kondo, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Shi‘i ‘Ulama and Ijaza During the Nineteenth Century
Tomoko Morikawa, Hokkaido University
Pilgrims and Customs at the Iran-Iraq Border in the Latter Half of the 19th Century
Joanna de Groot, University of York
Making, Unmaking and Remaking of an Iranian Heroine: The Appropriation of Qurrat al-‘Ayn
Bernard Hourcade, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Geography and Politics: New trends on Ethnicity, Nationalism and Globalization in Iran
Session 15B | Queen’s Park North| 11:00-12:30 p.m.| Saturday, August 2
Gender Relations, Sexuality and Love in Iranian Cinema
Chair: Frank Lewis, University of Chicago
Pedram Partovi, University of Chicago
Constituting Love in the Iranian commercial cinema
Christopher Gow, Independent Scholar
Masculinities of the New Iranian Cinema
Saeed Zeydabai-Nejad, University of London
The place of Women Filmmakers in Iranian Cinema
Noor Al-Qasimi, New York University
She Is What She Wears: Costume Superfluity, Femininity and the Articulation of Gender
Session 15C | Hazelton| 11:00-12:30 p.m. |Saturday, August 2
Zorastrianism and Cultural Dialogism
Chair: Zohre Zarshenas, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran
Asya Asbaghi, University of Potsdam
The influence of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism on classical Iranian literature
Ghazzal Dabiri, California State University, Fullerton
The Iranian Epic Heroes from the Avesta to the Mantiq al-Tayr
Maria E. Subtelny, University of Toronto
Zoroastrian Elements in the Islamic Ascension Narrative
Dan Sheffield, Harvard University
Between Den and Dharma: Indian Zoroastrian Texts from the Medieval and Early
Session 15D |University East| 11:00-12:30 p.m. | Saturday, August 2
Public Opinion and Youth Counter-Culture
Chair: Sima Shakhsari, Stanford University
Pegah Zohouri Haghian, Università Ca' Foscari, Venice
Khatami’s Administration and the Iranian Public Opinion: Beyond a Civil Society’s Discourse
Hadi Salehi Esfahani, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
& Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Virginia Tech
Voting for Populism: An Analysis of Iran's 2005 Presidential Election
Aliakbar Jafari, University of Wolverhampton
Cultural Globalisation, Reflexivity, and the Project of ‘Self’: the Case of Iranian Youth Culture
Session 15E | University West| 11:00-12:30 p.m. | Saturday, August 2
Special Persian Lecture
Chair: Homa Katouzian, University of Oxford
Pari Barkeshli, Conservatoire National de Musique, France
Oral Art and the Musical Note
Lunch | 12:30-2:00 p.m.| Saturday, August 2
Session 16A | Queen’s Park South | 2:00-3:30 p.m. | Saturday, August 2
Cultural Industries
Chair: Richard Foltz, Concordia University
Iván Szántó, Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences (ELTE)
The Smell of Iran: Collecting Persian Art in Hungary
Ayeh Naraghi, Ecole des Hautes Etude en Sciences Sociales
The Development of Cultural Industries in the Field of Iranian Contemporary Art
Manya Saadi-Nejad, Concordia University
Culture, Myth, and Artistic Production in Contemporary Iran
Session 16B | Queen’s Park North| 2:00-3:30 p.m.| Saturday, August 2
Directions in Folk Narrative Research of Greater Persia
Chairs: Margaret Mills, Ohio State University
Ulrich Marzolph, Enzyklopaedie des Maerchens
Ulrich Marzolph, Enzyklopaedie des Maerchens
Negotiating Folklore in the Islamic Republic of Iran
Erika Friedl, Western Michigan University
Folktales in Analysis: Ethnophilosophy in Boir Ahmad, Southwest Iran
Afsane Eftekharzade, Independent Scholar
Collecting Folktales in Baluchestan
Margaret Mills, Ohio State University
From the Gold-Monkey to Hatam at-Tayy: Types, Frames, Themes and Performer Identity in Two Performances of an International Tale
Session 16C | Hazelton| 2:00-3:30 p.m. |Saturday, August 2
Special Persian Lecture
Chair: Ahmad Ashraf, Encyclopaedia Iranica
Mohammad Ebrahim Bastani-Parizi, University of Tehran
Early Iranian Encounters with Canada
Session 16D | University East | 2:00-3:30 p.m. | Saturday, August 2
Diasporic Self-refashioning
Chair: Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm University
Mahdi Bermy, Centre of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies (CEDS, France)
Iranian Diaspora: A Force For Democracy?
Farzaneh Foroodi-Nejad & Johanne Paradis, University of Alberta
Transfer between the two Languages in Early Bilinguals from Immigrant Families
Raha Bahreini, University of Toronto
From Perversion to Pathology: Discourses and Practices of Gender Policing in the Islamic Republic of Iran
Session 16E | University West| 2:00-3:30 p.m. | Saturday, August 2
Exilic Memory
Chair: Shahrzad Mojab, University of Toronto
Farideh Dayanim Goldin, Old Dominion University
Iranian Jewish Women Writers: Voices from Exile
Nima Naghibi, Ryerson University
Truth Telling and Trauma in Nemat's Prisoner of Tehran and Entekhabi-Fard's Camelia: Save Yourself by Telling the Truth
Marta Simidchieva, University of Toronto
Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis: Sketching Iran for the Rest of Us
Manijeh Mannani, Athabasca University
Reading beyond Jasmine and Stars: Reading more than Lolita in Tehran
Break 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Session 17 | Queen’s Park Ballroom | 4:30-5:30 p.m. | Saturday, August 2
Plenary session: The Shahnamah Millennium
Chair: Ehsan Yarshater, Encyclopaedia Iranica
Charles Melville, University of Cambridge
Firdawsi's Shahnamah and its Reception
Discussant: Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, University of Maryland
Session 18 | Roy Thomson Hall | 7:30-7:50 p.m. | Saturday, August 2
ISIS Lifetime Achievement Awards
Ehsan Yarshater, Encyclopaedia Iranica
Mohammad Reza Shafi‘i-Kadkani, University of Tehran
Outstanding Academic Leadership Award
Ali Banuazizi, Boston College
Session 19 | Roy Thomson Hall | 8:00 p.m. | Saturday, August 2
The Shahnamah Millennium Concert
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
Behzad Ranjbaran, Composer
JoAnn Falletta, Conductor
Morshed Valiolah Torabi, Shahnamah Narrator
Sunday, 3 August 2008
Session 20A | Queen’s Park South | 9:00-10:30 a.m. | Sunday, August 3
The Encounter with God in Modern Persian Literature
Chair: Ali Ferdowsi, Notre Dame de Namur University
Discussant: M. R. Ghanoonparvar, University of Texas at Austin
Houra Yavari, Columbia University
God and Modern Sufis
Mehdi Khorrami, New York University
The Literary Confrontation of God and Satan in the Post-Revolutionary Persian Fiction
Ali Ferdowsi, Notre Dame de Namur University
Chubak, the writer and His God: From Ideological Ridicule to Ontological Encounter
Farshid Delshad, University of Berne, Switzerland
Case of Religiosity among the Persian Religious Minorities in the Post-Revolutionary Iran
Session 20B | Queen’s Park North| 9:00-10:30 a.m.| Sunday, August 3
Violence, Diversity, and Political Modernity
Chair: David Menashri, Center for Iranian Studies, Tel Aviv
Daniel Tsadik, Hebrew University
On the Eve of the Constitutional Revolution: The Jews of Iran in The Muzaffari Era, 1896-1906
Mehrdad Amanat, Independent Scholar
Violence and Modernity A Reexamination of Forced Conversion of Mashhad Jews
Mina Yazdani, University of Toronto
Reconstructing the Imbre (Saqakhanah) Affair, July 1924
Hossein Mesbahian, Tehran University
Modernity and its Other: The Logic of “Inclusive Exclusion”
Session 20C |Hazelton| 09:00-10:30 a.m. | Sunday, August 3
Love and Desire in Premodern Persian Poetry
Chair: Nasrin Rahimieh, University of California, Irvine
Franklin Lewis, University of Chicago
Sexual Occidentation: the Politics of Boy-love and Christian-love in ‘Attar
Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, University of Manchester
To Be Feared and Adored: Turks in the Kulliyat of ‘Ubayd-i Zakani
Alyssa Gabbay, University of Chicago
Deconstructing Hierarchies: The Male/Female Dynamic in Amīr Khusraw’s Story of Bahram Gur and the Slave Girl
Paul Losensky, University of Indiana at Bloomington
A Kiss in the Mirror of Beauty: A Study of Sa‘eb's Topical Anthology Mer’at al-Jamal
Session 20D | University East| 9:00-10:30 a.m.| Sunday, August 3
Linguistic Peculiarities
Chair: Carlo G. Cereti, University of Rome “La Sapienza”
Matthias Andreas Fritz, Free University of Berlin
The Status of Iranian within Armenian from a Lexicological Point of View
Kazuo Morimoto, University of Tokyo
An Arabic Vocabulary from Late Saljuq Khurasan: A Study of Ibn Funduq’s Azāhīr al-Riyā al-Marī‘a
Ekatreina Fein, University of St.Petersburg
Genre of Travelogue in Persian Prose of the 1st part of the XIX century and its linguistic peculiarities
Break | 10:30-11:00 | Sunday, August 3
Session 21A | Queen’s Park South| 11:00-12:30 p.m. | Sunday, August 3
Intellectual Trends in Twentieth-Century Iran I
Chair: Farzin Vahdat, Vassar College
Marek Smurzynski, Jagiellonian University Krakow, Poland
The Philosopher Without The Book, Ahmad Fardid, 1910-94
Evaleila Pesaran, University of Cambridge
From Al-e Ahmad to Ahmadinejad: Tracing Discourses of Anti-Westernisation in Iran
Philip Grant, University of California, Irvine
The Synthetic Intellectual in Contemporary Iran
Session 21B | Queen’s Park North | 11:00-12:30 p.m.| Sunday, August 3
Science and Knowledge
Chair: Enrico Raffaelli, University of Toronto
Tofigh Heidarzadeh, University of California, Riverside
History of Science and Technology in Persia
Mahdi Farhani Monfared, Al-Zahra University (Tehran)
The Decline of Mathematical Sciences after the Death of Uluq Beg, 853/1449
Ali Nayeri, University of California, Santa Barbara
Science and Science-seeking in Iran: The Sociocultural Effects
Session 21C | Hazelton | 11:00-12:30 p.m.| Sunday, August 3
Persian Literature
Chair: Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, University of Manchester
Jocelyn Sharlet, University of California, Davis
Observation as an Approach to Desire, Subjectivity, and Objectification in Nasibs by Farrukhi, ‘Unsuri, and Manuchehri
Janis Esots, University of Latvia
Some Connotations of the Terms Rind and Qalandar in the Poetry of Hafiz
Shokoufeh Taghi, Uppsala University
The Meaning of Baxt in Shahnameh and Wis o Ramin: A Comparative Analysis of Gender Differences
Eva L. Witte, University of Tehran
Persian Haiku Writing: A Preliminary Exposition
Session 21D | University East| 11:00-12:30 p.m.| Sunday, August 3
All the News That's Fit to Print?
Chair: Fariba Amini, Independent Journalist
Erfan Sabeti, Lancaster University
Blog Wars in the Global Age: The Case of Persian Bahai and anti-Bahai Weblogs
Shirin Sadeghi, University of London
Iranian Internet Use: Participatory Values and their Democratic Offspring
Omid Habibinia, University of Bern
Persian Satellite TV, New challenge for IRI
Session 21E | University West | 11:00-12:30 p.m.| Sunday, August 3
Special Persian Session
Chair: Azita Taleghani, University of Toronto
Shamsoddin Najmi, University of Kerman
Shahnamah-khani in the Safavid Era
Lunch | 12:30-14:00 p.m. | Sunday, August 3
Session 22A | Queen’s Park South | 2:00-3:30 p.m. | Sunday, August 3
Intellectual Trends in Twentieth-Century Iran II
Chair: Mansour Bonakdarian, University of Toronto
Ramin Jahanbegloo, University of Toronto
Furughi and Dialogical Modernization
Afshin Matin-asgari, California State University, Los Angeles
The Corbin Circle and the Making of Iran's Shi‘i Modernity
Farzin Vahdat, Vassar College
Nasr and the Critique of Modernity
Session 22B | Queen’s Park North| 2:30-3:30 p.m.| Sunday, August 3
Wither Exile, Enter Diaspora? Transnational Feminist Approaches
to the Cultural Politics of the Iranian Diaspora
Chair: Minoo Moallem, University of California, Berkeley
Discussant: Roksana Bahramitash, Université de Montréal
Niki Akhavan, Catholic University
Menacing Portent for the Future: The Iranian Diaspora and the Rise of Exclusionary Nationalisms online
Hossein Khosrowjah, University of Rochester
Carried by the Wind: Exilic Autobiographies and Iranian Diaspora
Sima Shakhsari, Stanford University
Chic of Queer, Lure of Diaspora: The Iranian Queer Diaspora and the Politics of Representation
Targol Mesbah, New College, San Francisco
House and Home: Psychogeography, Property, and the Iranian Diaspora
Session 22C |Hazelton| 2:00-3:30 p.m. | Sunday, August 3
Diasporic Iran
Chair: Parvonakhon Jamshedov, Tajik-Russian Slavonic University
Gulnara Mendikulova, Institute of Oriental Studies, Ministry of Education and Science-Kazakhstan
The Kazakhs: as Diaspora in Iran and Repatriates in Kazakhstan
Hirotake Maeda, Hokkaido University
An Armenian Family of Georgia between Iran and Russia in the 19th Century
Ashraf Zahedi, University of California, Berkeley
Filipino Brides in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Crossing Religious, Cultural, Racial, and National Boundaries
15.30-16.30 Tea/Coffee
Session 22D |University East| 2:00-3:30 p.m.| Sunday, August 3
Women’s Education and Employment
Chair: Marym Moazzen, University of Toronto
Mahshid Abdollahi, University of Isfahan
The Educational System and Female Social Participation in Isfahan, 1925-1950
Mina Mahdavinia, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
In Search of Excellence: The Meaning of Developing Progressive Education for Iranian Girls
Maryam Rezaee, University of York
Ismaili Women and their Participation in Tertiary Education in Iran
Shiva Sadeghi, University of Toronto
The Making of a Nation: Curriculum and Citizenship Education in Iran
Session 22E | Queen’s Park North | 2:00-3:30 p.m.| Sunday, August 3
Workshop on Translation
Chair: Rivanne Sandler, University of Toronto
Mohammad Reza Bateni, University of Tehran
Collocations and Idioms and Their Translatability
Session 23 | Queen’s Park Ballroom| 4:30-6:00 p.m.| Sunday, August 3
Performing Arts
Chair: Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi
Morshed Torabi, Naqal
Behzad Ranjbaran, Composer
Farzaneh Kaboli, Dancer
Pari Barkeshli, Musician
Session 24 | Queen’s Park Ballroom| 7:00-8:00 p.m.| Sunday, August 3
Closing Session
Morshed Valiollah Torabi
Shahnamahkhani & Pardahkhani
Program Committees
Program Chair
Administrative Assistant
- Shabina Moheebulla
Program Committee
- Mansour Bonakdarian
- Homa Katouzian
- Enrico Raffaelli
- Ajay Rao
- Azita Taleghani
- Rivanne Sandler
Advancement Committee
- Tina Tehranchian, Chair
- Khosrow Bayat
- Mansour Bonakdarian
- Shakiba Dilmaghani
- Massood Mansoorzadeh
- Kiumars Rezvanifar
- Susan Salek
- Mahsa Soldouzi
- Fereidoon Zahedi
Film Festival Committee
Media Relations Committee
Web Designer
Graphic Designer
Assistant Designer
- Mahnoosh Eslahi
Technical Director
- Bahram Masoudian