2021 Election

Bio. I am currently Associate Professor of the History of Iran and Islam at the University of Texas at Austin. Both before and after finishing my PhD in History at UCLA in 1999, and becoming an academic I have taken great interest in working on programs and projects. This includes many years of service to the profession, including the Association for Iranian Studies, the American Institute of Iranian Studies, and MESA, as well as 15 years of experience in leadership roles at UT Austin, such as Department Chair, Center Director, and Program Director.
My General Approach to Administration. Rather than a laundry list of policies that I would like to implement, I feel it may be more useful to explain my style of management/administration, much like the teaching philosophies we are all used to writing. In terms of my views, I take a hard line on academic freedom, and am fully committed to the association’s commitment to internationalism and diversity. Over the years I have come to see patterns in how I work in leadership and administrative roles. For example, in all of my past administrative positions the “big tent” approach has never let me down. Also, rather than simply continuing what has been done in the past, or conversely, trying to reshape everything in my own image, I find it best to think of it as a back-and-forth process. In the end, a program and its administrators should ideally be reflections of each other. This is doubly true for an elected administrative role like AIS president. In my experience, while program administrators are charged with making the tough decisions, more often than not the best decisions percolate from the broader group toward the center. Fortunately, AIS has been thriving. I have watched it grow from a more modestly sized organization in the early nineties, into a much larger and more international organization. It has also evolved with the broader field to be more diverse. It has also been placed on better legal and financial footing by previous AIS leadership. If I am elected I would like to continue these trends, while seizing opportunities to explore new areas of improvement and growth. One admission (perhaps a warning) I should make is that I am a great fan of modest, controlled, experimentation, and I think growth requires a bit of fearlessness in building on successes and learning from failures.
Research. I am currently working on two long-term research projects. The first is a social and cultural history of crime and law enforcement from the late Qajar period through the early Pahlavi period. The second is religious nationalism in Iran and the broader Middle East, studies through the lens of global trends in religious nationalisms. My main publications include: Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity: A Critical Re-evaluation. Co-edited with Afshin Marashi (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), The Martyrs of Karbala: Shi‘i Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, October 2004), The Women of Karbala: The Gender Dynamics of Ritual Performances and Symbolic Discourses of Modern Shi‘i Islam. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), Mourning and Memory. Co-edited with Rebecca Saunders. Special issue of the Journal Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (SCSAAME), 25.1 (2005), published by Duke University Press.

I earned my PhD from the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT in 2009 and I am currently an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. My scholarship engages a variety of topics related to architecture, art, and visual & material cultures of Iran. I am the author of Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran: Interior Revolutions of the Modern Era (Routledge, 2013; Shirazeh Press, trans., 2021). My forthcoming monograph, titled Alternative Iran: Contemporary Art & Critical Spatial Practice, which has been supported by the Iran Heritage Foundation at SOAS and the College Art Association, will be published in 2022 by Stanford University Press. I am the co-recipient of a grant from the Getty Foundation, through which I am undertaking extensive research on courses, programs, and public and private educational platforms in the fields of art history and architectural studies in Iran. Because of my background in art and design, I have also spearheaded multiple exhibition and curatorial projects related to Iran and its surrounding regions.

Since 2010 I have held a number of leadership positions. For example, I am the co-founder and chair of the think tank Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative, and I also serve on the board of the Association of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey. At my home institution, I am the director of the Office of Undergraduate Research.

I am a frequent contributor to Iran-based podcasts, journals, and newspapers. Using on- and off-line opportunities, I actively participate in class discussions and serve as external reader for theses and dissertations on modern and contemporary Iranian art and architecture. Through my engagement with universities, alternative teaching institutions, and galleries & museums in Tehran, I am in close contact with many established and emerging Iran-based intellectuals and creative agents.

I have been involved with the Association of Iranian Studies (AIS) since 2001. In addition to my participation in conferences, I have served AIS in various capacities, including as the student council representative and as a peer reviewer for multiple AIS panels and presentations as well as Iranian Studies Journal papers. Over the years, I have closely followed the important contributions of past and recent AIS Presidents and council members. I am eager to bring my expertise to AIS and will work hard to sustain AIS’s excellent existing programs, while also spearheading a few extra initiatives. My vision for the future of IAS includes: a) working closely with AIS council to strengthen the links between diasporic and Iran-based institutions of higher learning; b) enhancing collaboration on publication venues in and outside of Iran and other geographic areas with ties to Iran’s diverse cultures and languages; c) boosting AIS’s visibility through social media networks that are easily accessible to Iran-based scholars and students; d) initiating platforms for exchange of resources, especially for scholars who cannot travel to the international archives of the Persianate world and researchers who cannot travel and/or access resources in Iran; e) providing further support for scholars at risk and those in underrepresented and unprivileged geographic areas; f) strengthening the ties between IAS and top organizations of visual and material cultures of the Persianate world; g) enhancing the mentorship workshops and promoting further interdisciplinary events at the biennial Iranian Studies conference. 

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Her first book, Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation (Princeton,1999), considers the significance of land and border disputes to the process of identity and nation formation. In addition, she has worked extensively on the histories of disease, science, and reproductive politics. These themes are explored in her book, Conceiving Citizens: Women and the Politics of Motherhood in Iran (Oxford, 2011), which won the 2012 book award from the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies for outstanding scholarship in the field of Middle East gender studies. She has also co-edited a volume: Gender in Judaism and Islam: Common Lives, Uncommon Heritage (NYU, 2014). Her current academic projects focus on a range of subjects, including decolonization, race, and migration. Kashani-Sabet enjoys writing fiction and poetry. She has published a novel entitled, Martyrdom Street (Syracuse, 2010) and considers creative writing a medium through which to explore the human and emotional dimensions of social upheaval.

Kashani-Sabet received her doctorate from Yale University. Since 1999, she has been teaching Middle Eastern and Iranian history at Penn. At this time, she is actively involved in training graduate students in Iranian and Middle East Studies. Kashani-Sabet directed Penn’s Middle East Center from 2006-2019 as a National Resource Center (NRC). As director, she successfully obtained three rounds of competitive funding from the US Department of Education, including Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships. She oversaw the creation of Penn’s undergraduate major and minor degrees in Modern Middle Eastern Studies (MMES). She also pioneered and supported many programs that promoted cultural pluralism, language acquisition, gender awareness, and the arts. Finally, she created an artist-in-residence program with support from the Social Science Research Council.

Statement of Intent
The opportunity to serve the field is a privilege. Like many of you, I came to Iranian Studies almost by default – as a displaced person and a first-generation female college graduate – in search of a scholarly home. I wanted to understand the violence that I had witnessed and that had traumatized me as a teenager. My intellectual journey briefly took me back to Iran as an adult. I visited archives, but more importantly, the homes of people who entrusted me with their stories. As a scholar and teacher, I have strived to impart the necessity of preserving these accounts. Even as our intellectual paths diverge and pull us in different directions, our commitment to the people we write about remains paramount.

In 1967, the Society for Iranian Studies came into existence during an era of turmoil. Social revolutions were convulsing different corners of the world. By recognizing and embracing the spirit in which the Association emerged more than a half-century ago, I hope to deepen the impact of Iranian Studies beyond its traditional silos and audiences. Together, we can reimagine existing scholarly paradigms and build support around thematic initiatives that express our commitment to pluralism, diversity, and academic rigor. One of the remarkable features of Iranian Studies today is the vast expansion of its global scholarly networks, upon which we can rely to sharpen our vision.

As the world reels from the impact of a devastating pandemic, our academic endeavors matter ever more. We owe it to ourselves and to the next generation to preserve the horrors and humanity elicited by this existential crisis; to learn from it; and to nurture an even more vibrant and enduring community of students and researchers.

Thank you very much for your consideration of my candidacy.

Thank you for considering me as a member of the AIS Council and for this opportunity to tell you a little about myself and why I am running for this position.

The interdisciplinary nature of my research as a Media Studies scholar has often required that I engage fields outside of Iranian Studies. In these arenas, I have always worked to bring a bigger focus on Iranian studies so that scholars and issues in our field gain wider recognition and engagement. For example, as the co-Chair of the Middle East Caucus of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies from 2011-2013, I was active in pushing for a broader inclusion of scholars and creators of Iranian Media. Since that time, I have continued to work with subsequent chairs and other colleagues from that professional society to facilitate the opportunities for emerging scholars whose work engages both Media Studies and Iranian Studies.

In my current position as the Chair of the Media and Communication Studies department at the Catholic University of America where I also serve as faculty for the Islamic World Studies program, I use every opportunity to highlight Iranian Studies and to introduce the scholarship in our field to students and colleagues who would otherwise not have had the opportunity to engage this work. My dedication to expanding access to texts in Iranian media and scholarship is also reflected in my work as a translator: I have subtitled the films of Abbas Kiarostami for the Criterion Collection, and my translation of Mohsen Kadivar’ Islam and Human Rights was published this year by Edinburgh University Press.

As an active journal and manuscript reviewer, almost all of the work I review falls within Iranian Studies. Providing this professional service to the field has also been a great pleasure, especially because it gives me the chance to read the work of emerging young scholars. It is clear that the field has grown in exciting and inclusive ways since the time I attended my very first AIS conference back in 2002.

My own research largely focuses on Iranian digital media cultures. In addition to cultures of resistance, I have also been attuned to the ways that the Iranian state has used various forms of media to promote its own agendas. My book, Electronic Iran: The Cultural Politics of an Online Evolution (Rutgers, 2013) was among the first to caution about state sponsored uses of digital technology and cultural production. In addition to my work on digital media, I have also published on Iranian documentary and narrative films.

As the above indicates, my research and professional service has been dedicated to strengthening and promoting Iranian Studies. Being a part of the AIS council would be the first time I would have the opportunity to be fully surrounded with colleagues who are specifically working in Iranian Studies and who share the goals of maintaining and expanding excellence in the field. I also hope to facilitate more opportunities for junior scholars, whether in the form of encouraging their involvement in AIS, creating resources to foster research, and/or building mentorship relationships.

Assef Ashraf is Assistant Professor in the Eastern Islamic Lands and Persian-Speaking World at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. He received his PhD from the Department of History at Yale University in 2017. His current research centers on questions of imperial formation and governance, with particular attention to the rise of the Qajars in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Aspects of that research have been published in Comparative Studies in Society and History, the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, and the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. He has co-edited a book with Abbas Amanat entitled The Persianate World: Rethinking a Shared Sphere (Brill, 2018), and also serves on the Editorial Board of a new series dedicated to publishing critical editions of primary source texts related to Persianate world history. At Cambridge, he teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate classes on the history of Iran and the Persianate world. From 2012 to 2017, he co-edited the series Dissertation Reviews, which was dedicated to highlighting the research of emerging scholars and new work in various disciplines. Since 2021, he has served as the History Book Review Editor at AIS’s flagship journal, Iranian Studies. In his teaching, research, and professional service, Professor Ashraf has been deeply committed to the field of Iranian Studies, and would be pleased to further advance AIS’s objectives by serving on its Council.

I have been a member of AIS since 2012, and have always found the biannual meetings a wonderful time to see old friends and make new ones, to learn from each other, to celebrate the achievements of our members and commemorate the people we have lost, and to collectively think about the state of our field and the many disciplines it represents. If elected to the Council, I would be delighted to work with my colleagues in further building AIS into a welcoming and robust community of scholarly exchange, support, and outreach. My main modalities for this sort of work are listening and collaboration; being new to this level of leadership, I do not have a concrete platform going in, and would rather be there to help problem-solve and build consensus.

About my background and research interests: I received my PhD from the University of Chicago in 2015, and am now an Assistant Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. My major area of research revolves around Persian epic and romance of the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, particularly as it pertains to genre theory, transregional history, and the negotiation of selfhood. I have published articles on the works of Ferdowsi, Nezami, and Gorgani, with some studies in progress on Ayyuqi and Iranshah ibn Abi'l-khayr, and the title of my forthcoming monograph is Love at a Crux: The New Persian Romance in a Global Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press).

I am honored to be nominated to the AIS Council and hope to be of service to its diverse and growing membership. I am a media and cultural studies scholar of contemporary Iran, and believe that my own multi-layered trajectory to academia, traversing continents, professions and disciplines will serve me in collaborating with the president and other council members to respond to the needs of a dynamic academic landscape and its members.

I have been a member of the Association of Iranian Studies since 2006, and have attended nearly all biennial conferences, both presenting and organizing panels and roundtables. I have also served on the program, award, and nominating committees, and currently serve as a book review editor for its journal Iranian Studies. During this time, I have been encouraged to see positive developments within the organization, including its recent adoption of a Diversity and Inclusiveness Policy as well as the creation of a Committee for Academic Freedom. I have been enriched both by the network that the association offers as well as the intellectual content of talks and meetings at the conferences.

As an AIS committee member, I would focus on the three following issues:

1) Having had a winding path to academia via journalism and filmmaking, I am familiar with the precarity of the academic profession, increasing – as it is – by the day. I have been encouraged by the AIS presidential sessions that address the needs of junior scholars and will work to strengthen its new mentorship program. One particular idea that I would advance is matching each willing junior member with a more experienced scholar in their own field. This midcareer or senior mentor would help guide and empower the junior member to tread a sustainable and successful path within academia. This mentorship program would align with the association’s aims for greater diversity and inclusion, as I would hope that less conventional members (those of under-represented identities or those working on niche yet groundbreaking topics) can find a welcome home.

2) Having received my schooling in Iran and Germany, and my university degrees from US and UK institutions, and having worked in all those places, I am familiar with the different academic contexts and would work to tighten academic networks across countries. In particular, I am interested in finding ways of creating greater collaborations with scholars working in Iran and the wider Persianate world, which would benefit academics situated in the West as much as it would those scholars from the region who are working under increasingly difficult conditions. This could take the simple form of a Google Group or Whatsapp group where academics across borders can communicate with each other and exchange ideas, sources, resources etc. to other forms of partnerships.

3) Finally, as an academic who has previously worked in the media and is committed to doing public-facing scholarship, I would advocate for creating a more prominent voice for the AIS, along its statements on academic freedom. We live in a time of great divisions and disinformation within the global Iranian community, and I would like to see us present a voice that speaks to truths and realities in the morally muddy waters of our age. This will have to be done in a sensitive and sensible manner that while speaking for reason, allows us to maintain our academic standpoint and stray far from partisan politics.

Thank you for your attention, and I hope to see you in Salamanca!

Claudia Yaghoobi is a Roshan Institute Associate Professor in Persian Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2013. She is the author of Temporary Marriage in Iran: Gender and Body Politics in Modern Iranian Literature and Film (Cambridge UP, 2020) and Subjectivity in ‘Attar, Persian Sufism, and European Mysticism (Purdue UP, 2017). She is also the co-editor (with Janet Afary) of a book series titled, Sex, Marriage, and Family in the Middle East for IB Tauris/Bloomsbury Press. As an Iranian-Armenian-American, Yaghoobi’s research concerns the literature and culture of the Middle East with a special focus on the members of sexual, ethnic, and religious minority populations, ones marginalized by normative society. Her work addresses the embodiments of liminality through which authors, artists, directors challenge and critique social hegemonies. Her first monograph, Subjectivity in ‘Attar, Persian Sufism, and European Mysticism reassesses the significance of the concept of transgression and construction of subjectivity within select works of the medieval Persian Sufi poet Farid al-Din ‘Attar Nishapuri (1145-1221). She traces the intersections of transgression, law, inclusion and exclusion, self and the other, in ʿAttar’s treatment of class, gender, sexuality, and religion. Her second monograph, Temporary Marriage in Iran: Gender and Body Politics in Modern Persian Literature and Film examines the representation of sigheh (temporary marriage) in modern Iranian cultural productions. However, the book moves beyond the literary and cinematic realms and examines in-depth a rather controversial social institution which has been the subject of disdain for many Iranian feminists and captured the imagination of many Western observers. Her third book project is tentatively titled Multiple Consciousness: Transnationalism in Iranian Armenian Cultural Productions. This project examines the various creative ways that Iranian Armenian authors and artists, as members of religious, ethnic, and cultural minoritized populations of Iran and later in the U.S., craft and negotiate a sense of identity, which is at odds with the wish to be integrated into mainstream society while maintaining ties with the homeland (Iran and Armenia).

My teaching and research focus on minoritized and underrepresented populations, and my service is informed by working towards action, founded on the qualities of equitability, justness, awareness of structural biases, and resilience. I strive to be understanding of historical and intergenerational hardships, as well as the personal and individual challenges of those around me. AIS’s commitment to academic freedom, diversity and inclusion, and transnationalism appeal to me and are areas that I believe I can contribute to. As an AIS council member, I will aspire to be a facilitator, who looks beyond a system of gains and losses forward to teamwork across differences. My mission vision is a legacy of love, compassion, and service – one that takes into account the lived experiences and mental, emotional, and somatic responses of everyone in order to engage with opening “gates” for diverse opportunities.

Layah Ziaii-Bigdeli is a PhD student in Visual Studies program at University of California, Irvine. Her background is in Iranian archaeology and art history. She earned a B.A. in Art History and archaeology with a concentration in ancient Near Eastern art at Columbia University and an M.A. in Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies with an emphasis on Islamic art at Rutgers University. Her master’s thesis examines Nishapur figural buff ware with an intention to understand the quality of modern conservation and its effects on scholarship. Currently, she is interested in problems of transition from Sasanian to Islamic Iran. Her dissertation project focuses on foodways and cultural identity in Sasanian and early Islamic Period. She has also been actively working on Sasanika which is a website dedicated to disseminating information and promoting research on Sasanian history and Late antiquity studies.

I’ve been a member of AIS for over 8 years, and it’s been very rewarding to be a part of an organisation that understands the needs of a student (and scholar) of Iranian studies. Its strong sense of community and high academic standard have been essential pillars in my journey as a student. I would like to show my appreciation and contribute to this organisation by using my professional and personal experiences to assist and promote our graduate students body. I am currently a DPhil student at the University of Oxford where I work on the role of the Tudeh Party in British policy during the British–Soviet occupation of Iran during the Second World War. I recently submitted my thesis and will be defending sometime in the future. I did my BA in History at the School of Oriental & African Studies and an MA in Middle East & Mediterranean Studies at King’s College London. I was born and grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Becoming deeply interested in Iran, I decided to pursue modern Iranian history as a passion and a vocation. I learnt to read Persian and continue to improve my reading for sources. Among other pursuits, I am particularly interested in the Iranian Left and their position in international politics. I have contributed to academic journals and to edited books, as well as participated in several conferences. As such, I am well aware of the many pressures a PhD student faces, especially if they want to pursue an academic career afterwards. Due to my own experiences, I am deeply concerned about the issue of mental health among graduate students, and have been a vocal advocate for more peer support and openness about the anxieties and stresses that face any PhD or Masters student. 2020 has been an eventful year to say the least. With the Covid-19 pandemic and the great waves of protests surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, it has become necessary to make active stands for our scholarly community to make it more inclusive, open and engaged. I am keen to start conversations around such issues and would like to create virtual spaces for students to contribute and have their say. As a dedicated and experienced graduate student, I will work hard to ensure frankness, transparency and awareness are ensured.

William Figueroa is a historian of Sino-Iranian relations, specializing in 20th century diplomatic, intellectual, and ideological exchanges. He received his History PhD in December 2020 from University of Pennsylvania and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Middle East Center. His dissertation, “China and the Iranian Left: Transnational Networks of Social, Cultural, and Ideological Exchange, 1905-1979,” is the first historical study of Iran-China relations that is based in both Chinese and Persian sources and forms the basis of his current (first) book project. It is a multi-lingual, archivally-based project that explores intellectual and political ties between Chinese and Iranian constitutionalists, socialists, and student activists from the beginning of the 20th century through the height of the Cold War. Since graduation, he has published several pieces that highlight Iran’s transnational connections, contemporary and historical. He has two upcoming articles accepted for publication, one on “New Perspectives on Sino-Iranian Relations, 1965-1979” for Asian Affairs, and another entitled “Performative Diplomacy: Iran-Republic of China Relations, 1920-1949” for Iranian Studies. He also comments on contemporary Sino-Iranian relations in popular media and podcasts, has appeared on BBC Persian, and has written several articles for Jadaliyya and The Diplomat, including “China-Iran Relations: The Myth of Massive Investment” and “A "$400 billion" China-Iran Deal? The View from History.” Finally, he helps runs the U.S branch of the Iranian Studies Collective twitter account, which interviews graduate students, researchers, and professors on issues pertinent to Iranian Studies.

I am a third-year PhD student at the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. I am specifically interested in the political history of Iran during the Pahlavi era and its transnational entanglements. My PhD project focuses on the exile of the Tudeh Party of Iran in East Germany and its interactions with the Iranian student community in Western Europe from 1953 to 1979. I have prepared for the doctoral stage during my masters in Iranian Studies at St Andrews, which I completed with a thesis on the historiographical agenda of Bizhan Jazani in 2019. In 2017, I received my undergraduate degree in Islamic Studies from the University of Bamberg, Bavaria. During this programme, I also took the opportunity to spend a semester at the International Center for Persian Studies of the University of Tehran, which was formative for both my professional and personal development.

From the outset of my student life, I have been interested in strengthening our voice as students in the academic process and in promoting our academic and professional development. As an active representative of the student body of the Institute for Oriental Studies in Bamberg, I contributed to organizing student-led language tutorials, career events as well as to the further development of the curriculum of the undergraduate programme in Islamic Studies. Moreover, I participated in planning and conducting a student conference where university students from all disciplines relating to West Asia and North Africa could showcase and discuss their research.

With my candidacy for the role as student representative at the AIS Council, I want to continue this engagement. I am amazed by the work Leila and Rowena have been doing as student representatives and would like to continue their efforts, especially with regards to the extremely helpful presidential sessions. Additionally, I would like to create more spaces where the student members of AIS could come together, exchange their thoughts, build networks, and express their needs and visions with regards to what AIS could offer to them. Living between the two worlds of British and German academia myself, it is a key concern of mine to also include those who study outside of the sphere of Anglo-American academia in this discussion. The pandemic has demonstrated that the tools to virtually create such spaces are available and enable us to also communicate with many of those who are not able to attend the in-person events like the biennial AIS conference.

I look forward to getting the opportunity to work toward implementing these ideas and to serving together with Rowena as your voice in the AIS Council.