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Past
ISG
Lecture Series
June
2005
"The Great Historic Challenge:
Empowering Youth in Iran"
Thursday June 23rd, 2005 6:00-7:30 p.m.
| In this talk,
I will begin with a short
summary of the activities
and achievements of the
Science and Arts Foundation-SAF
( http://www.saf.ir
) during the past six years,
including the establishment
of Iran's SchoolNet ( http://www.schoolnet.ir
) in 17 of the country's
provinces, Iran's chapter of
iEARN (http://www.iearn.org)
and local ICT centers( http://zitc.saf.ir
) in the Sistan and
Baluchistan province. By
promoting team work,
creative research activities
and collaborative projects
in schools through the
launch of numerous e-clubs,
the organization of regional
and national conferences for
extra curricular activities
and support for
international collaboration
and the participation of
teachers and students in
international conferences,
SAF has played a key role in
creating a new ethos for
education which has impacted
national policies in Iran.
After a brief introduction
of the above programs, I
will turn to my personal
experiences in establishing
and building SAF as an
organization to empower
youth.
I will explain how, in
the past few years, in the
light of self-reflection and
interaction with hundreds of
Iranian individuals and
organizations inside and
outside the country, I have
reached the hypothesis that
there are deep structural
problems in our national
character and cultural
identity which severely
restrict our capacity to be
empowered, to collaborate in
order to develop sustainable
civil society organizations
and to take the gigantic
steps required for
development in all economic,
social and cultural spheres.
I will argue that these
problems are symptoms of
what modern science
recognizes as trauma, as
characterized by:
hyperarousal, irritability,
inner insecurity,
watchfulness and avoidance.
Based on advances in
biological, medical,
psychological and
anthropological sciences, I
will propose that these
traumatic symptoms, now
ingrained in our cultural
identity, are transmitted
from one generation to the
next through child abuse,
women abuse and domestic,
social and political
violence. Their roots can be
historically traced to the
massive trauma suffered by
Iran in the invasions of the
Mongols and Timur and their
brutal rule in the
thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, a cataclysm which
caused a catastrophic
overturn of the
socio-economic and political
structure of Iran on the one
hand and a major
transformation of our moral
and social character on the
other hand. These momentous
historic events defined a
decisive turning point which
resulted in the complete
destruction of the great
Iranian-Islamic civilization
and the eradication of the
creative and rational spirit
in the region. While the
colonial and neo-colonial
domination of Iran has
periodically re-enacted the
original trauma, the
tyrannical and despotic rule
of successive dynasties,
much in the spirit of the
Mongol military-political
code (Yasa), has
continuously sustained the
transmission of trauma from
past generations to the
present, reproducing the
trauma dynamically in the
family as well as in the
social and political
institutions existing in
this region of the world. I
will then assert that, in
order to tackle the root
cause of the main obstacle
to empowerment and
development in Iran, we face
the grand historic task of
breaking the cycle of trauma
in family, social and
political life. The key
issue is to address and
challenge child and women
abuse along with domestic
and social violence and to
promote emotional literacy
for children, teachers,
parents and society as a
whole.
.
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May
2005
"US
Foreign Policy and Future of Democracy in Iran"
Lecture by Prof.
Abbas Milani (Stanford University)
Sunday May 29th, 2005 5:00-6:30 p.m.
Lecture
based on Washington Quarterly Summer 2005 Paper
Listen
to the Audio File (MP3)
November 2004
"What
happened to the China Model?
Future
of Economic Reforms in Iran"
Siamak
Namazi , Managing Director of Atieh
Bahar Consulting, Iran
Date:
Monday Nov. 22, 2004 Time: 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Location:
MIT, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139
Room 4-231 See
Map
Lecture
in English Free and Open to the Public
Refreshments
will be served.
October
2004
"Iran's
experience with the forces of modernity"
A
Lecture by Dr. Farzin Vahdat
Saturday
October 16, 2004 MIT, Room
4-231 4:00 pm- 6:00 pm
77
Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139
Refreshments
will be served.
Audio
File 1 (MP3) Audio
File 2 (MP3)
Dr. Farzin Vahdat is a sociologist
interested in critical theory and the development of modernity in the
West and the Middle East. He teaches social studies at Harvard
University, and is the author of God and Juggernaut: Iran 's
Intellectual Encounter with Modernity (2002). His articles have
appeared in journals such as Critique and the International Journal of
Middle East Studies.
July 2004
One Hundred
Years of Women's Rights Struggle in Iran (1904-2004): A Chronology
Speaker: Ali Mostashari, Executive Board
Member, Iranian Studies Group at MIT
Date: Saturday July 31, 2004
The organized struggle of women in Iran for
their rights goes back to the days of the Iranian constitutional revolution in
1905. This presentation provides a chronological overview of developments in
women's rights over the past one hundred years and ends with questions on its
possible future. Following the presentation will be open discussion on the
possible trends of women's issues in Iran in the near and mid-term future.
Iran at the Grassroots The Fate of Local
Democracy under the Islamic Republic
By Kian Tajbakhsh, Ph.D
Research Fellow, Iranian Cultural Research Bureau
Sunday, Dec. 7, 2003 4:00 p.m.- 5:30 p.m.
Kian Tajbakhsh (Ph.D. 1993, Columbia
University) is based in Tehran, Iran, where he is a Research Fellow, Cultural
Research Bureau. He teaches as a visiting Professor at the School of Social
Sciences, Tehran University. He is a member of a network of researchers and
practitioners on development for the Middle East Region based in Beirut,
Lebanon. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Milano Graduate School, New
School University, New York City, where from 1994 until 2001, he was Assistant
Professor of Urban Policy and Politics.
"Nonviolent
Struggle: Liberation without Violence"
Dr. Gene Sharp, Albert Einstein Institution
Saturday June 7, 2003 at
6:00 p.m
Gene Sharp is Senior Scholar at the
Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, Massachusetts. From 1965 he held
research appointments in Harvard University’s Center for International
Affairs for nearly thirty years. He is Professor Emeritus of Political
Science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Dr. Sharp, who has
been called "the Clausewitz of nonviolent warfare," founded the
Albert Einstein Institution in 1983 to promote research, policy studies,
and education on the strategic uses of nonviolent struggle in face of
dictatorship, war, genocide, and oppression.He holds the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy in political theory from Oxford University (1968), a Master
of Arts in Sociology (1951), and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences
(1949) from Ohio State University. Manhattan College awarded him an
honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (1983). Rivier College awarded him an
honorary Doctor of Humanitarian Service (1996).
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"Iran's Azari population and relationships
with Azerbyjan and Turkey"(Persian)
-
-
Prof. Houshang Chehabi
Professor of International Relations,
Boston University
-
Saturday, February 8, 2003
- Professor Chehabi has taught at Harvard,
Oxford, and UCLA, and has held Alexander von Humboldt and
Woodrow Wilson fellowships. He has published a book, Iranian
Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of
Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (1990) as well as co-editing
Politics, Society, and Democracy: Comparative Studies (1995) and
Sultanistic Regimes (1998). Professor Chehabi has also written
numerous articles, book reviews, and translations.
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"Siqeh (Temporary Marriage) and Women's rights"
- Prof. Shahla Haeri
- Boston University
- Monday, January 20, 2003
Shahla Haeri is an Assistant Professor of
Anthropology. She graduated from UCLA in 1985 after conducting fieldwork
in her native Iran. This research was published as Law of Desire:
Temporary Marriage in Shi'i Iran, and has been translated into both Arabic
and Urdu. She has also published extensively in English and Persian on
Islamic fundamentalism and women's rights. Her recent field studies have
been in Pakistan and she is presently completing a manuscript on several
Pakistani women's life histories that challenge the stereotypes about
Muslim women Professor Haeri has held fellowships at Oxford, at London, at
Brown and at Harvard, and has participated in many international seminars
and symposiums on women's issues in Islamic society. She teaches courses
on legal anthropology, women, and politics.
- "Rethinking Persian Modernity" (English)
- Dr. Abbas Milani
- Friday, November 8, 2002 7:00 p.m.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology Room 54-100
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- Audio File 1 Audio
File 2
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- "Hoveyda and the issue of Modernity in Iran" (Persian)
- Dr. Abbas Milani
- Saturday November 9, 2002 4:00 p.m
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology Room 4-270
Audio File 1 Audio
File 2
Abstract (Translated from Persian)
Raised in Iran, Abbas Milani was sent to
be educated in California in the 1960s. He became politically active and
in 1974 received a PhD. in Political Science. He returned to Tehran and
taught at the National University but was imprisoned by the Pahlavi regime
in 1977. After the revolution he became a professor at Tehran University,
but in 1986 he emigrated to the United States. He is currently Chair of
the Department of History and Political Science at the Notre Dame de Namur
University in California
"Who is a Dictator"(Persian)
by Dr. Mohsen Kadivar
Visiting Scholar, Harvard Law School
Previous Lecture
Series Talks (Persian, Audio
Files)
Mohsen Kadivar was born in June 7,1959 in
Fassa, southwestern Province of Fars, Iran. Completing his primary and
secondary education in the city of Shiraz, he was admitted to the
undergraduate program of electronic engineering in the University of
Shiraz (ex-Pahlavi University) in 1977. Kadivar succeeded in gaining the
degree of ijtihad in 1997. At the same time, he pursued his academic
studies in Islamic philosophy and theology getting his PhD from Instructor
Education (Tarbiat Modares) University in 1999. He has published over 100
papers in various Iranian journals and his first book, Theories of State
in Shiite Fiqh, came out in 1998 in Tehran and was translated into Arabic
and published in Beirut in 2000. Altogether, he has published 12 books.
Kadivar was arrested for the first time in May 1978 – the last year of
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Shah's reign in Iran – in Shiraz during the
Islamic uprising which later led to the overthrow of the monarchy. 20
years later, the unconstitutional Cleric Court of Iran found him guilty of
campaigning against the Islamic Republic because of the statements he had
made in an interview with the banned Khordad Daily in which he reviewed
the achievements of the Islamic Republic (1979-99) and a speech in Isfahan’s
Hosseinabad Mosque where he argued that acts of terrorism are condemned in
the eyes of the Shiite faith; he was sentenced to spend 18 months in Evin
Prison, Tehran, and was released on July 17, 2000. He is still campaigning
for the reform of the Islamic Republic of Iran. At the time of the
lecture, he was involved in research, and teaching as a visiting scholar
at the Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Other past Speakers have
included:
Faraj Sarkoohi, Writer
Dr. Reza Barahani,
Writer
Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush,
Philisopher
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