The International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS)

 TENTH BIENNIAL IRANIAN STUDIES CONFERENCE

Montreal, Québec, Canada, Hilton Bonaventure Hotel, Wednesday August 6, 2014-Sunday August 10, 2014

CALL FOR PAPERS

The organizers of the 10^th Biennial Conference of the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS) invite proposals for pre-arranged panels and individual presentations in all subfields of Iranian studies. The primary language of the conference is English, but papers in Persian will be considered as well. All proposals must be submitted electronically.

Information about the 2014 conference can be found online at http://iranianstudies.com/conferences/2014

Independent PAPER PROPOSALS should include a bio of the presenter (a paragraph of no more than 200 words), and an abstract of the paper limited to a paragraph of no more than 400 words, outlining the central theme and main argument of the presentation. 

Convenors of PRE-ORGANIZED PANELS should submit a personal bio and a panel proposal outlining the central theme of the panel, and indicating how the individual presentations mentioned in the order in which they are to appear, relate to that theme. The format and word count of the panel abstract are as those for independent paper proposals.  Panel members must submit personally their own bios and abstracts, which follow the format of the independent paper proposal, but include also the title of the panel, which the panel convenor should convey to the presenters. Ordinarily panels comprise four presentations, but panels with three presenters will also be considered. In the latter case, the organizers may suggest to the panel convenor a fourth member, whose independent proposal is congruent with the topic of the panel.

THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION IS MAY 31, 2013, 11.59 PM

Applicants for the 10^th ISIS Conference must be current members of ISIS, and must preregister for the conference. ISIS membership can be obtained by accessing the ISIS website Membership page http://iranianstudies.com/membership

ADJUDICATION: Pre-arranged panels and independent paper proposals undergo a peer-review process by a Program Committee of scholars, whose names and academic affiliations will be published on the ISIS website after the closing of the submissions process. All applicants will be notified of the status of their proposals in the fall of 2013, so that the approved candidates will have sufficient time to arrange funding through their institutions, or to apply for Canadian entry visas (where applicable).

REFUNDS: In compliance with ISIS REFUND POLICY, reimbursement for the conference registration is available upon request until February 1, 2014. Membership dues are not subject to reimbursement.  All cancellation and refund requests should be addressed to the Executive Director of ISIS, Professor Rivanne Sandler at director@iranian-studies.com

GENERAL QUERIES regarding the conference may be directed to the Program Committee Office at office@iranianstudies.com

Marta Simidchieva

2014 ISIS Conference Program Chair

2014program@iranianstudies.com

In addition to a mouse and worms, Iran has now sent a monkey into space! Read here and here. 

The National Iranian American Council now accepts applications for part-time and full-time interns for the Spring 2013 semester to operate out of NIAC’s Washington DC office. Starting date is generally late January/early February for the Spring semester, and internships last for at least 10-12 weeks. NIAC will assist in helping interns get school credit, but positions are unpaid. The deadline for Spring 2013 applications is January 27, 2013 though applications are reviewed/considered as they are received.

Qualifications: NIAC seeks dynamic undergraduate/graduate students and recent graduates, preferably in international relations, political science, and government/public policy. Excellent written and spoken communication skills, a highly organized approach to work, and proficiency in the use of computers are essential. Interns with a working knowledge of Farsi/Persian may translate news and information coming out of Iran for our blog, www.NIACinSight.com, which has been one of the foremost sources of information on the unfolding events in Iran. 

Responsibilities: Interns work in conjunction with NIAC staff in Washington, DC, on NIAC’s programs, including monitoring of Congressional activities, researching legislation, and drafting analyses and action alerts on issues related to immigration, civil rights, and foreign policy. Responsibilities also include writing news articles for both NIAC’s blog and website, as well as covering Congressional hearings/policy conferences and writing reports for inclusion on the website. Interns work on various NIAC civic education projects and collaborate closely with Iranian-American organizations across the country. Interns assist with program implementation, database management, community outreach, event planning, logistical support for staff activities, and other administrative duties. 

How to Apply: Please email sphalsaphie@niacouncil.org your resume, cover letter, writing sample (journalistic writing preferred but an academic sample is also acceptable).

Sepideh Phalsaphie
Office Administrator
_____________

National Iranian American Council
1411 K Street NW, Suite 250
Washington, DC 20005 

Tel: (202) 386-6325
www.niacouncil.org
Check out NIAC’s blog at www.niacINsight.com

پل خواجو

Initial appointment is for one year with the possibility of renewal for an additional year based on continued funding and satisfactory performance. Applicants must have the Ph.D. by September 1, 2013. Discipline is open, but the focus of research should concern Iran and/or the broader Persianate world. However, the fellow is expected to devote the bulk of his or her time to research and publication, and to broadening his or her knowledge of the Middle East. Competitive salary plus benefits. The appointee will have a small research fund.

Deadline for application 5 January 2013. Informationhttp://www.princeton.edu/nes/programs-domestic-abroad/post-doctoral-fellowships/

Call for Papers: The Sixth Biennial Convention of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS)

September 2-6, 2013 Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

The Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS) calls for the participation of its members in its Sixth Biennial Convention, to take place in place in Sarajevo, Bosnia- Herzegovina, September 2-6, 2013. The Oriental Institute of Sarajevo (http://www.ois.unsa.ba/) and the Bosniac Institute (http://www.bosnjackiinstitut.ba/home/sadrzaj/191), located a short distance from the old town, will host and help organize our meeting. The deadline for submission of abstracts is February 15, 2013. Following tradition, the ASPS will cover the cost of accommodation, food, excursions and events for the participants, during the Convention. We will likely have a limited number of fellowships available for participants from Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia and Georgia.

All humanities and social science disciplines related to Persianate Societies are welcome. We encourage pre-organized panels, but individual papers are also welcome. Submissions for pre-organized panels must include a panel abstract of no more than 300 words plus individual abstracts of no more than 300 words for each panelist. Panels must be limited to a minimum of three panelists and a maximum of four. Panels and individual abstracts must contain:

• Name(s)
• Affiliation
• Discipline
• Address
• E-mail address/fax no./phone no.
• Title of paper and abstract with clearly stated thesis
• For pre-organized panels, panel abstract with a clearly stated thesis plus individual abstracts

Please send abstracts in Word document format through electronic mail to:
Prof. Rudi Matthee,
History Department,
University of Delaware
e-mail: matthee@udel.edu;
fax: (302) 831-1535

We are very enthusiastic about holding the Sixth Biennial Congress of the Association in Sarajevo. For more than six centuries, Sarajevo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as the larger region of the Balkans, have boasted strong currents of Persianate culture that have remained unknown to most us. As a part of the ancient Mediterranean, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Balkans are also rich in monuments related to Mithraic cults that bear testimony to the region’s much older ties with the larger Iranian ecumene.

We look forward to an exciting sixth convention. Past Congresses of the ASPS have been held in Dushanbe/Tajikistan (2002); Yerevan/Armenia (2004); Tbilisi/Georgia (2007); Lahore/ Pakistan (2009), and finally, Hyderabad/India (2012). We invite you to peruse through the reports of these Conventions, as well as their programs, through our web page and Newsletters at http://www.persianatesocieties.org.

The ASPS Congresses have provided a rare and valued opportunity for scholars from West, Central and South Asia, Europe and North America to participate in an interdisciplinary dialogue. The interchange of ideas has also found its place in our publication, Journal of Persianate Societies, published by Brill Academic Publishers. We encourage you to take the opportunity to participate in this unique gathering.

Iran Unveils Home-Made Missile Launching Hovercraft

Call for Papers:

From Tehran to Tahrir: Public Space Redefined

The Center for Global Communication Studies (and its Iran Media Program) at the Annenberg School for Communication (University of Pennsylvania) will hold a workshop on February 1, 2013.  The subject is the reconceptualization of “public space,” in the 21^st century, drawing on potential shifts influenced by  the events of the Arab Spring and the contested Iranian election of 2009.  The workshop will have Iran as a focus, but locates changes in a comparative context, both temporally and geographically.

Public spaces within cities are often idealized as spaces where discourse and demonstration are at least tolerated, if not celebrated. But this ideal is often absent and the ideal is under institutional and popular pressure.  Ambiguous sets of spaces emerge as individuals and groups find alternate ways to exercise their speech rights, gain information, and enrich their ways of building community. These spaces can be tangible, such as the takeover of a privately owned park, or virtual, as was witnessed in the uses of social media in the Arab Spring.

Tehran is a striking case study in the defining of public space. The physical space itself is abundant, with nearly 1,800 parks and green areas in the city.  The workshop will be an opportunity for modes of presenting how these spaces are used and abridged and in what ways groups and individuals cope and consider implications.  Using physical space freely and openly is problematic, and spaces for discourse, leisure, and protest must be delineated in different ways.  As an example, one popular way is to secretly install and maintain satellite receivers. When the government inevitably jams the satellite signals, “satellite men” are called to re-orient receivers and allow information (in the form of news and entertainment programming) to flow again. In this way, the satellite receiver opens up a space for political dissent and cultural protest that is not found in the streets and reimagining the definitions of public and private.

Creation, destruction and recreating public space is an issue in a variety of contexts (in the Middle East and elsewhere).   We invite submissions that discuss how the use of public space for political or social purposes is rendered illegitimate or contested in many parts of the world and how alternatives are engendered.  How does the magnified role of social and digital media affect methods of communication and assembly in redefining public space?  In short, how does public space emerge in different urban, cultural, or political conditions?  “From Tehran to Tahrir: Public Space Redefined” invites case studies, scenarios, and speculations that explore the evolving relationship between urbanism, media, and the mutable definition of public space.

This workshop is designed to be interdisciplinary.  Together, the resulting speculations are intended to provide a new understanding of the definition and agency of public space in some contemporary cities.  Some topics to be discussed are:

• Rethinking public space in Iranian political discourse
• Spatial tactics of assembly and protest through uses of satellite channels
• Urban design and the rethinking of public space:  examples from the Arab Spring
• Public Space, international broadcasting and global views of public space in the Middle East
• Comparative perspectives on legitimizing and delegitimizing public Space
• New technology and urban culture: Sentient cities and new forms of public space
• Religion and the definition of public space
• Art and media as defining and enriching public space
• Managing global representations of uses of Iranian public space
• Crowdsourcing and narratives of public Space
• Violence as a mode of disrupting public space

This event is sponsored by the Iran Media Program at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania (www.iranmediaresearch.org/en). The Iran Media Program is a collaborative network designed to enhance the understanding of Iran’s media ecology. Our goal is to strengthen a global network of media scholars and practitioners working on Iran-related topics (the Iran Media Scholars Network) and to contribute to Iran’s civil society and the wider policy-making community by providing a more nuanced understanding of the role of media and the flow of information in Iran.

Funding will be made available for paper presenters’ travel related costs and accommodation. Following the workshop, participants are expected to yield a variety of possible products, including for some, a publishable paper by a set deadline for an anticipated edited volume. 

Please submit an abstract of 1-2 pages and CV to iranmedia@asc.upenn.edu by November 4, 2012.

جاده چالوس  - شمال ایران

Chalus Road - North Iran

تخت جمشید - ایران

Persepolis - Iran 

By Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA | Wed Sep 12, 2012 8:22am EDT

(Reuters) - Arab states are expected to refrain from targeting Israel over its assumed nuclear arsenal at the U.N. atomic agency’s annual conference next week so as not to undermine wider efforts for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, diplomats said.

This would be welcomed by Western states, which have been concerned that an Arab move against Israel would discourage the Jewish state from attending talks due to be held this year on banning such weapons of mass destruction in the volatile region.

“It is certainly positive,” one Western envoy said.

The diplomats said Arab countries would as usual criticize Israel in the debate but, like last year, not submit a joint resolution on the issue to the September 17-21 General Conference of the U.N.’s 155-nation International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Western powers had been urging Arab envoys accredited to the IAEA not to put forward a non-binding but symbolically important resolution singling out Israel, which is widely believed to possess the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal.

They said this would have dashed any hopes for a proposed conference late this year, probably in Helsinki, on creating a zone without nuclear arms in the Middle East. Israel, like its arch-adversary Iran, has yet to say whether it will take part.

In a surprise move at last year’s IAEA gathering, the Arab group decided not to zero in on Israel with a resolution on “Israeli Nuclear Capabilities” in what was called a “goodwill gesture” ahead of the planned 2012 talks.

Israel welcomed this as a “positive” development, in a rare conciliatory exchange in an otherwise heated debate that underlined deep Arab-Israeli divisions on nuclear issues.

An Egyptian plan for an international meeting to lay the groundwork for the possible creation of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction was agreed at a review conference on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2010.

“THREATENING PEACE”

But the Western official organizing the conference, Finnish diplomat Jaakko Laajava, said in May he had yet to secure the needed attendance of all countries in the region. Even if it goes ahead, Western diplomats don’t expect substantial progress any time soon due to deep-rooted regional animosities.

Israel’s refusal to become party to the NPT or to place its nuclear installations under IAEA safeguards is “exposing the region to nuclear risks and threatening peace”, Arab states said in a statement ahead of the General Conference.

Israel has drawn frequent Arab and Iranian condemnation over its presumed nuclear arsenal, and it is the only regional state not to belong to the NPT.

Israel and the United States regard Iran as the world’s main proliferation threat, accusing Tehran of covertly seeking a nuclear arms capability, something the Islamic state denies.

Arab states scored a diplomatic victory in 2009 when IAEA members narrowly endorsed a resolution urging Israel to join the NPT and place all its atomic sites under agency supervision.

Brought up again in 2010 to keep up pressure on Israel, the resolution was defeated after a bruising diplomatic battle.

Israel has never confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons under a policy of ambiguity aimed at deterrence.

The Jewish state says it would only join the NPT after a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement. If it signed the 1970 NPT pact, it would have to renounce nuclear weaponry.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

اصفهان - ایران

(PDF links)

• Introduction pp. 1-13 | DOI: 10.1353/jmw.2012.0020 Adi Kuntsman, Noor Al-Qasimi

• From Homoerotics of Exile to Homopolitics of Diaspora: Cyberspace, the War on Terror, and the Hypervisible Iranian Queer pp. 14-40 | DOI: 10.1353/jmw.2012.0022 Sima Shakhsari

• The Egyptian Blogosphere: Policing Gender and Sexuality and the Consequences for Queer Emancipation pp. 41-62 | DOI: 10.1353/jmw.2012.0024 Grant Walsh-Haines

• “Coming Out of the Internet”: Lesbian and Gay Activism and the Internet as a “Digital Closet” in Turkey pp. 63-88 | DOI: 10.1353/jmw.2012.0025 Serkan Gorkemli

• Efféminés, Gigolos, and MSMs in the Cyber-Networks, Coffeehouses, and “Secret Gardens” of Contemporary Tunis pp. 89-112 | DOI: 10.1353/jmw.2012.0026 Rodney Collins

• Queer Beirut Online: The Participation of Men in Gayromeo.com pp. 113-137 | DOI: 10.1353/jmw.2012.0027 Mathew Gagné

• WaWa Series p. 138 | DOI: 10.1353/jmw.2012.0028 Fatima Al Qadiri, Khalid al Gharaballi

• The “Boyah” and the “Baby Lady”: Queer Mediations in Fatima Al Qadiri and Khalid Al Gharaballi’s Wawa Series (2011) pp. 139-142 | DOI: 10.1353/jmw.2012.0019 Noor Al-Qasimi

• “israelis and Iranians, Get A Room!”: Love, Hate, and Transnational Politics from the “Israel Loves Iran” and “Iran Loves Israel” Facebook Campaigns pp. 143-154 | DOI: 10.1353/jmw.2012.0021 Adi Kuntsman, Sanaz Raji

• Contributors pp. 155-157 | DOI: 10.1353/jmw.2012.0023