[Not to be a noodge, Doug, but I hope you get a chance soon to post your interview with Dabashi. I want to bathe in his hopefulness before the crackdown maybe wipes it all away.]
http://www.alwanforthearts.org/event/366
Alwan for the Arts Presents:
Book Reading and Discussion: Iran Un-interrupted: A Discussion with Professor Hamid Dabashi
Thursday, June 25, 2009 7:00 P.M.
Free and Open to the Public
Books of Professor Dabashi will be available
Forty Million Iranian went to the voting booth, almost 80% of its eligible voting population -- this is a moment to celebrate. The unfolding events in Iran are a testament to the institutional power of its civil society. Regardless of the outcome, the current configurations are part of Iran's historical, dialectical and organic movement. Professor Dabashi offers a reading of Iran that goes beyond the cliches of a country caught between a belligerent medieval tradition and an alien modernity to a more historical and culturally multifaceted approach. His analysis will ground the unfolding developments materially and historically and offers suggestions for an oppositional approach that requires collective intelligence and political vigilance.
Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious Chair in Iranian Studies. Professor Dabashi has written 18 critically acclaimed books, edited 4, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews in major scholarly and peer reviewed journals on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, Shi'ism, Medieval and Modern Islamic Intellectual History, Comparative Literature, World Cinema, Trans-aesthetics, Trans-national Art, Philosophy, Mysticism, Theology, Post-colonial Theory and Cultural Studies.