AIS Elections 2010

is Associate Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs where he also serves as the Founding Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program. Dr. Boroujerdi received his B.A. in Political Science and Sociology (Magna Cum Laude) from Boston University, and his Ph.D. in International Relations from the American University in Washington, D.C. His doctoral dissertation won the Foundation for Iranian Studies award in 1990 for best dissertation in the field of Iranian studies, and in 1998 he was awarded the Maxwell School’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for outstanding teaching, research, and service. In addition to more than thirty journal articles and book chapters in English and Persian, he is the author of Tarashidam, Parastidam, Shikastam: Guftarhay-i dar Siyasat va Huvyiyat-i Irani (Tehran: Nashr-e Negah-e Mo`aser, 1389/2010) and Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism (Syracuse University Press, 1996) — translated into Arabic, Persian, and Turkish — and is the editor of a forthcoming volume entitled Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and Theory of Statecraft. For the last several years, Dr. Boroujerdi has been working on a large research project collecting data on more than 2,000 members of the political elite of post-revolutionary Iran. He has been the recipient of grants from the Henry R. Luce Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute of International Education, the U.S. Department of Education, and the United States Institute of Peace. Since 1996, he has served as general editor of the Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East series published by Syracuse University Press, and from 2000 to 2007 he served as the book review editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. He is a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute (Washington, D.C.), a member of the Social Science Research Council’s Religion and International Affairs Advisory Committee, an institutional trustee of the American Institute of Iranian Studies, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Near East Foundation. Dr. Boroujerdi (with Mirjam Künkler) is a principal investigator of the Iran Data Portal (http://www.princeton.edu/irandataportal/), an internet portal that hosts social science data on Iran. He is a former member of the Executive Council of AIS where he also served as co-chair of the membership committee. In 2006, he served as a member of the selection committee for the best published article in the society’s journal.

is an Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and the former director of Women's Studies Program at Boston University. Trained as a Cultural Anthropologist with specific focus on law and religion, Haeri has conducted ethnographic research in Iran, Pakistan, and India. Her ongoing intellectual and academic interests converge on the evolving yet contentious relationship between religion/law, gender, and the state in the Muslim world in general, and in Iran in particular. She is the author of Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage, Mut’a, in Iran (1989, 2006 4th pt.(translated into Arabic and Urdu) and No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani women (2002/2004). She is currently involved in a multipronged project, involving a short film (in preparation) called “Veiling Mannequins: Modesty Meets Market in Iran,” and an accompanying book project, tentatively titled, From Bazaars to Boutiques: Fashion and Modernity in Iran. She explores the transformation of dress-making and fashion from Reza Shah’s modernizing Act of Unveiling of 1936 to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s determination to redirect social change and modernity by imposing the veiling act of 1982. Dr. Haeri sits on MESA's Board and on the Admission's Committee of The Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School. She has been awarded numerous grants and postdoctoral fellowships, including Henderson Senior Research Fellowships in the Humanities at Boston University (2008-2009), Research Associate at The  Women’s Studies in Religion Studies at Harvard Divinity School (Colorado Scholar; 2005-2006), Fulbright (1999-2000, 2002-2003), St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University (1996), American Institute of Pakistan Studies, (1991-1992), Social Science Research Council (1987-1988), Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown University (1986-1987), and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University (1985-1986). Dr. Haeri has produced a short video documentary (46 min.) entitled, Mrs. President: Women and Political Leadership in Iran, focusing on six women presidential contenders in Iran in 2001: http://ffh.films.com/http://ffh.films.com/search.aspx?q=Shahla+Haeri. These women’s aspiration to seek the presidential office highlights their ‘invisibility’ in the media, of professional, educated, middle/upper class Muslim women.

(maîtrise, sociology, Strasbourg University, 1983; PhD, social anthropology, EHESS, 1990), is Senior Researcher at the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales (CERI) and the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (FNSP), Paris. Since the 1980s, her main research interests focus on the interplay between social changes and political transformations in the second half of the twentieth century. Her current research, “anthropology of travel,” deals with the social and political impact of Iranians abroad– such as remittances, visits, intellectuals’ exchanges, investments – on Iran; a new social phenomenon to be analyzed as both a dimension of global change and a specific feature of Iranian society. Her books are Révolution sous le voile. Les femmes islamique d’Iran (Karthala, 1991), Etre moderne en Iran (Karthala, 1998, second ed. 2006, engl., Columbia University Press, 2000), Iran (Le cavalier bleu, 2005). She has co-authored Thermidor en Iran ( Editions Complexe, 1993), Ramadan et Politique (CNRS Editions, 2000), Dubaï, Cité globale (2001), Voyages du developpement (Karthala, 2007) and, forthcoming, The Moral Economy of the Madrasa. Islam and Education Today (Routledge, 2011). Her articles include “Les Iraniens de Californie: si la République islamique n’existait pas…,” (CERI paper, 2001), “Iran: vers un espace public confessionnel,” (CERI paper, 2007), “Framing the Public Sphere: Iranian Women in the Islamic Republic,” in A. Salvatore et al., eds., Public Islam and the Common Good (2004), “Les migrants prodigues. Pratiques notabiliaires des migrants iraniens dans le Golfe,” in H. Janer et al., eds., Mondes en mouvements (2005), “Economie morale du pèlerinage et société civile en Iran: Les voyages religieux, commerciaux et touristiques à Damas,” Politix (2007), “Iran: une République islamique sans mosques,” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la méditerranées (REMMM) (2009), “Islamophobia and Malaise in Anthropology,” in S. Nadjmabadi, ed., Conceptualising Iranian Anthropology (2010). She co-authored, with Zuzanna Olszweska, “The Iranian Afghans,” Iranian Studies (2007), and, with Abdrrahmane Moussaoui, “Les Mosquées. Espaces, Institutions et Pratiques,” REMMM (2007), and co-produced the documentary Bons baisers de Damas (2004). Her teaching, professional services, and merits include: researcher respectively Director of Research at SciencePo (1993-2004; since 2004); lecturer at IEP (1988-2000; and 200-2007), editor of the section “Champ libre,” Cemoti (1995-2001), editorial board member, Iranian Studies (since 2004), and editorial board member, Revue des mondes musulmans et de la méditerranées (since 2004).

is Professor of Iranian History, University of St Andrews (since 2004), and Associate Fellow, Middle East Program, Royal Institute of International Affairs (since 1998). He previously lectured at SOAS (1997-98), Exeter (2004), and Durham universities (1998-2003), after having received his PhD, in Political Studies, from SOAS in 1998 (MA, War Studies, 1990, King’s College; BA, History, London University College, 1989). He has written extensively, mostly on the pre and post-revolutionary periods of Iran’s twentieth century, but also on the nineteenth century. He is the author of Crisis of Authority: The Iranian Presidential Election of 2009 (Chatham House, 2010), Iran under Ahmadinejad: the Politics of Confrontation (Adelphi Paper, 2007), Confronting Iran: the Failure of US Foreign Policy and the Roots of Mistrust (Hurst, 2006), Iran, Islam and Democracy (RIIA, 2000, 2nd ed. 2006), The History of Modern Iran Since 1921 (Longman, 2003, 2nd ed. 2007). Forthcoming books are The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2011), A History of Early Modern Persia, 1797-1921 (Longman, 2012), Iran (Harvard University Press, 2014), and, as editor, The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 8, The Islamic Republic. His articles include “Iran under Ahmadinejad: Populism and its Malcontents,” International Affairs (2008), “Iran and the US in the Shadow of 9/11,” Iranian Studies (2006), “Persia in the Western Imagination,” in V. Martin, ed., Anglo-Iranian Relations since 1800 (Routledge, 2005), “Iranian Nationalism,” in Y. Choueri, ed., Companion to the History of the Middle East (Blackwell, 2005), “Cultural Transmutations: the Dialectics of Globalisation in Contemporary Iran,” in T. Dodge et al., eds. Globalisation and the Middle East (RIIA, 2002), “The Myth of the White Revolution: Mohammad Reza Shah, ‘Modernisation’ and the Consolidation of Power,” Middle Eastern Studies (2001), “Iranian Foreign Policy under Khatami,” in A. Ehteshami et al., eds., Iran and Eurasia (Ithaca Press, 2000), and “The Militarisation of the Caspian,” in H. Amirahmadi, ed., The Caspian Region at a Crossroad (St Martin’s Press, 2000). His professional service and administrative experience include: Director, Institute of Iranian Studies, University of St Andrews (since 2006); member of the Academic Committee, Iran Heritage Foundation (since 2008); council member and Modern Iran Project Manager, British Institute for Persian Studies (since 2006); committee member, British Academy, Middle East External Relations Panel (since 2008); and external MA and PhD examiner at the universities of Edinburgh, Manchester, and SOAS, amongst others.

is Lecturer in Persian Studies and Iranian Literature at the University of Manchester, UK. Before arriving at Manchester in 2007, he taught medieval and modern Persian literature and Persian language at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal (2005-2007), and before that he taught Persian language and medieval Persian literature at the University of Oxford (2002-2005). He obtained his BA Hons in Oriental Studies (Arabic with Persian) and his DPhil (in medieval Persian poetry) from the University of Oxford. He has published widely on medieval Persian and Arabic literature, modern Persian poetry, non-Muslim minorities in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Iran, and Persian language learning. His recent publications include: “To be Feared and Desired: Turks in the Collected Works of ‘Ubayd-i Zakani,” Iranian Studies, 42:5 (2009), 725-744; “Revivification of an Ossified Genre? Simin Behbahani and the Persian Ghazal,” Iranian Studies, 41:1 (2008), 75-90; [co-edited with Nasrin Rahimieh], Forugh Farrokhzad, Poet of Modern Iran: Iconic Woman and Feminine Pioneer of New Persian Poetry, I.B. Tauris, 2010; [co-edited with Seena B. Fazel], The Baha’is of Iran: Socio-historical Studies, Routledge, 2008, paperback 2010; and [co-authored with Pouneh Shabani Jadidi], The Routledge Introductory Persian Course: Farsi Shirin Ast, Routledge, 2010. His forthcoming publications include Media Persian, Edinburgh University Press, 2010, and Hafiz and His Contemporaries: a Study of Fourteenth-century Persian Love Poetry, BIPS Persian Studies Series, I.B. Tauris, 2011. In August 2010 Dominic Parviz Brookshaw was awarded a prestigious Early Career Scheme Fellowship by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and will be spending this academic year on fully-funded research leave looking at the production, patronage, and reception of women’s poetry in early Qajar Iran. In July 2008, he co-convened (with Nasrin Rahimieh) an international conference entitled, “Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-2007): 40-year Anniversary Conference” at the University of Manchester, and in 2006 he served as a member of the Advisory Committee for the Sixth Biennial of Iranian Studies held in London. Dominic Parviz Brookshaw has served as Assistant Editor of Iranian Studies since January 2004 and as a member of the Governing Council of the British Institute of Persian Studies since November 2009.

completed her Ph.D. in Classical Persian Literature and Medieval Islamic History at the University of Chicago’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in 2007. She was a visiting scholar at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Washington until 2010 and is presently a research associate with the University of Chicago’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Her research addresses issues of pluralism and gender in medieval and early modern Persianate societies. Gabbay’s publications include Islamic Tolerance: Amīr Khusraw and Pluralism (Routledge, 2010); “Love Gone Wrong, Then Right Again: Male/Female Dynamics in the Bahrām Gūr-Slave Girl Story,” Iranian Studies (2009): 677-92; “Establishment of Centers of Indo-Persian Court Poetry,” in A History of Persian Literature, ed. Ehsan Yarshater et al, vol. 9 (I.B. Tauris, forthcoming); and the entries on “Qa’ani,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica (forthcoming), and “Bazaar” and “Sainthood” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, revised edition (Oxford University Press, 2009). Gabbay is also the co-editor, with Julia Clancy-Smith, of a forthcoming symposium titled “Fathers and Daughters in Islam: Spiritual Inheritance and Succession Politics,” to be published in the Journal of Persianate Studies, and the author of an introduction and article in the same issue. Other publications include “‘In Praise of One of the Deeply Learned Ulamā’: A Mysterious Poem by Qājār Court Poet Mīrzā Habīb Allāh Shīrāzī Qā’ānī,” in The Necklace of the Pleiades, ed. Franklin Lewis and Sunil Sharma (Rozenberg and Purdue University Press, 2007), “Portrait of an Innocent,” a translation of a short story by Houshang Golshiri, in Black Parrot, Green Crow, ed. Heshmat Moayyad (Mage, 2003), and a review of Esther’s Children: A Portrait of Iranian Jews, ed. Houman Sarshār, in Irānshināsī (Winter 2003). Gabbay is currently writing a monograph about famous fathers and daughters in Islam. She is the recipient of the Best Ph.D. Dissertation on a Topic of Iranian Studies award from the Foundation for Iranian Studies in 2007, a Fulbright-Hayes fellowship for research in India in 2006, and an American Institute of Iranian Studies fellowship for study in Iran in 2003.

I am currently an assistant professor and the director of graduate studies in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo (AUC). My research interests include the modern and classical literary traditions of the Persophone world as well as the cultural production of the Iranian diaspora, which increasingly calls into question the validity and status of ‘diaspora’ as an epistemological category. I am also interested in comparative studies of the modern narrative traditions of the Middle East. The book that grew out of my doctoral research, Burying the Beloved: Realism and Reform in Modern Iran, examines how the discourses of civil law and prose fiction developed coevally and contributed to the reification of particular kinds of gender norms. This study is the culmination of both long-standing interests in how gender is defined and enacted in different cultures over time, and in the development of the novel as a ‘universal’ or ‘world’ genre. Living in Cairo for the past two years has not only provided a rich counterpoint to the experience of spending extended periods of time in Tehran, but has also allowed me the opportunity to undertake comparative work among the modern Persian and Arabic literary traditions, two areas in which I received formal training while completing my doctorate at Princeton University. My current research project is concerned with Iranian communities living outside of Iran in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The dominance of nationalist discourses in twentieth-century Iran not only divided it metaphorically from regional neighbors, but also deeply influenced the study of modern Iran. My study aims to complicate assumptions about Iran’s modernity and literary heritage. Selected professional activities: Organizer, Middle East and North Africa Faculty Research Colloquium, AUC (2010-); Assistant Editor, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics (2010-); Advisory Board Member, Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies (IGWS), AUC (2008-). Selected awards/fellowships: T. Cuyler Young Award in Iranian Studies, Princeton University (2009); Quinn Morton Fellow, Princeton University (2007-2008); Center for the Study of Religion Fellow, Princeton University (2004-2005).

is Associate Professor of Journalism at the Jordan Media Institute. He has also taught journalism and communication at the American University of Beirut, the American University of Kuwait and the Lebanese American University. He is the author of Journalism in Iran: From Mission to Profession, and co-editor, with Homa Katouzian, of Iran in the 21st Century, Politics, Economics and Conflict, both published by Routledge in 2007. Hossein Shahidi worked at the BBC World Service, London, 1983-2001, as a journalist in the Persian and Arabic services and the Central News Department, and in the Training Department where he was in charge of journalism and production training for all broadcasters joining the BBC World Service. He has also trained professional journalists in East and South Asia, the Arab World, and Iran. Hossein was Gender and Media Specialist with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Afghanistan, 2003-2004, managing a project aimed at supporting women journalists in the country. The project helped with the formation of the Afghan Women Journalists’ Forum, which organized coordination and training conferences for some 300 women journalists from across Afghanistan and produced literature and video material to promote gender equity and prevent violence against women. Over the past thirty years, Hossein Shahidi has written on Iran, Central Asia and the Arab World for a variety of media, including www.iranian.com, http://english.aljazeera.net/, and independent specialist journals in Iran, San’at-e Haml-o Naghl, Adineh, Payam-e Emrouz, Mehrname and Bokhara. Since September 2006, he has been Assistant Editor, Social Sciences, for Iranian Studies. His areas of research interest include Iranian politics, economy and culture; media professionalism, media accessibility, and media usage, especially in the Islamic world; public service communication, especially for the promotion of healthcare, education and gender equality; history of the media; and global production and consumption of energy.

has a PhD in Iranian Studies from the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (1989: Persian Didactic Prose from the 11th-12th cc. CE), and a BA in English Literature from the University of Tehran, Iran (1976), where she started her graduate work in Persian studies. She teaches courses on history, religion, culture and civilization of the Muslim world at the Department of Humanities, York University, Toronto, and at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto. She has worked also as a translator and staff editor with the Encyclopaedia Iranica at the Center for Iranian Studies, Columbia University. Before coming to Canada in 1991, she was an Assistant Professor of Persian literature and culture at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria. Her research interests focus on Persian literature and the history of ideas: on issues of continuity and change, modernity and tradition, and East-West cultural interrelations. Marta Simidchieva served as a Program Chair of the 2010 Biennial Conference of the Association for Iranian Studies in Santa Monica, California, and is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Iranian Studies. Select publications: “Men and Women Together: Love, Marriage, and Gender in Forugh Farrokhzād’s First Collection, Asir,” in Forugh Farrokhzad, Poet of Modern Iran: Exploring her Life and Works. Eds. Dominic Parviz Brookshaw and Nasrin Rahimieh, London and New York: I.B.Tauris (forthcoming); “ Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi of R. A. Nicholson,” The Mawlana Rumi Review I. Ed. Leonard Lewisohn. A Publication of the Rumi Institute, Near East University, Cyprus, and The Rumi Studies Group of the Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, UK , 2010, 33-68; “Sadeq Hedayat and the Classics: The Case of The Blind Owl”. In: Sadeq Hedayat: His Work and His Wondrous World. Ed. Homa Katouzian. London and New York: Routledge, 2008, pp. 20-43; “Kingship and Legitimacy in Nizam al-Mulk’s Siyasat-nama, 5th/11th c.” In: Writers and Rulers: Perspectives from Abbasid to Safavid Times. Eds. Beatrice Gruendler and Louise Marlow. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2004. Pp. 97-131; “Rituals of Renewal: Sadeq Hedayat’s The Blind Owl and the Wine Myths of Manuchehri.” Oriente Moderno XXII (LXXXIII), n.s./1-2003: La letteratura persiana contemporanea tra tradizione e modernita. Ed. Natalia L. Tornesello, Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente “C. A. Nallino,” pp. 219-241.

is a sociologist interested in notions and conditions of modernity and their applications to Iran, Islam and the Middle East. He is the author of God and Juggernaut: Iran's Intellectual Encounter with Modernity (Syracuse University Press, 2002) as well as the forthcoming book, Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity which deals with some Iranian and non-Iranian Islamic intellectuals and their discourses in relation to the forces of the modern world. He is also the author of numerous articles in English and Persian, a number of which have been translated into various languages, including Swedish, Italian, and Spanish. Vahdat has taught at Tufts, Harvard and Yale Universities and Vassar College and is currently conducting research at Vassar. Vahdat has been involved in some extra-academic activities such as being a co-founder of Nonviolent Initiative for Democracy (NID) which aims to promote a culture of nonviolence in conjunction with efforts to bring about social and political change in Iran and the region.