Saturday 14 April
8.30-9.15am | Registration and Coffee |
9.15-9.30am | Introductory Remarks: Zuzanna Olszewska (University of Oxford) |
9.30-10.30am | Keynote: William O. Beeman (University of Minnesota): “Persian, Dari and Tajik: A Shifting Linguistic Landscape.” |
10.30-11am | Coffee break |
11.00am-1pm | Panel 1: Living Vernacular Traditions in the Persianate World
Chair: Edmund Herzig (University of Oxford) Margaret A. Mills (Ohio State University): “Life in War/War in Life: Afghan Personal Narratives, Traditional Speech Genres and Cultural Loss.” Gabrielle van den Berg (Leiden University): “Language and Performance: Oral Traditions in Tajik Badakhshan.” Dominic Parviz Brookshaw (Stanford University): “Vernacular Identity: Tehran’s Relationship with the Colloquial.” |
1-2.30pm | Lunch |
2.30-4.30pm | Panel 2: New Media: Blogs and Broadcasting at Home and in the Diaspora
Chair: Stephanie Cronin (University of Oxford) Orkideh Behrouzan (University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston): “Dépréshen Translated: Memory Work and Emerging Psychiatric Discourses in Iranian Blogs.” Sima Shakhsari (University of Houston): “Blogging for a Living and Politics of Rightful Killing: Persian Blogging, Gendered Soldiers, and Neoliberal Diasporic Entrepreneurship.” Samad Alavi (UC Berkeley): “Parazit: Persian Satire in the Facebook Age” |
4.30-5.30pm | Drinks Reception (20 St. Giles’) |
5.30-7.30pm | Film Screening: Dar Nimparde-ye Shab, Avaz-e Aftab (dir. Reza Khakshur, 2011; in Persian without subtitles) and presentation/performance by Abdi Behravanfar on “The Repertoire of the Bakhshis [Traditional Master Musicians] of Northern Khorasan” (in Persian with translated handout; The Barn) |
Sunday 15 April
10:30-11am | Coffee |
11am-1pm | Panel 3: Genre, Gender and Generation in Post-Revolutionary Iranian Texts
Chair: Homa Katouzian (University of Oxford) Niki Akhavan (Catholic University of America): “The Simple Language of War: Women Writers and the ‘Literature of the Holy Defense’.” Fatemeh Shams Esmaeili (University of Oxford): “From Bullet to Bread: Verbal and Ideological Transformations in Qaysar Aminpur’s Poetic Discourse” Nahid Siamdoust (University of Oxford): “Out of Tune: Islam as a Contested Idiom in Iranian Rap, Rock and Pop Music” |
1-2.30pm | Lunch |
2.30-4.30pm | Panel 4: Poetry as Life, Belief and Social Resource
Chair: Domenico Ingenito (University of Oxford) Setrag Manoukian (McGill University): “Poetry as a Mode of Existence in Modern Iran.” Zuzanna Olszewska (University of Oxford): “Generational Conflict and Authenticity of Expression in Afghan Poetry Circles.” Benjamin Gatling (Ohio State University): “Mavlavi Jununi and New Sufi Poetics in Tajikistan.” |
4:30-5pm | Discussion and Concluding Remarks
Chair: Zuzanna Olszewska |