First-Year Reading Experience – 2004
Author Azar Nafisi
Biographical Information | Online Interviews & Lectures
"Azar
Nafisi is a Visiting Fellow and professorial lecturer at the Foreign
Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced
International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. A professor of aesthetics,
culture and literature, Dr. Nafisi held a fellowship at Oxford University
teaching and conducting a series of lectures on culture and the important
role of Western literature and culture in Iran after the revolution
in 1979. She taught at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University,
and Allameh Tabatabaii before coming to the United States—- earning
national respect and international recognition for advocating on behalf
of Iran’s intellectuals, youth, and especially young women. She
was expelled from the University of Tehran for refusing to wear the
mandatory Islamic veil in 1981, and did not resume teaching until 1987.
She has lectured and written extensively in English and Persian on the
political implications of literature and culture as well as on the human
rights of Iranian women and girls and the important role they play in
the process of change for pluralism and an open society in Iran and
other Muslim societies.
Dr. Nafisi's writings include Anti-Terra: A Critical Study of Vladimir Nabakov’s Novels (1994) and chapters in Muslim Women and Politics of Participation (1997), Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran (1992), and Religious Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women, (1999). Her op-eds and articles have been published in The New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, The LA Times, The Baltimore Sun, and The New Republic, and her cover story, “The Veiled Threat: The Iranian Revolution’s Woman Problem”, published in The New Republic (February 22, 1999), has been reprinted into several languages. She is currently teaching on the relation between culture and politics at SAIS. Her new book, the critically-acclaimed bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, was published by Random House in 2003.”
Source: The
Dialogue Project, School of Advanced International Studies
The Johns Hopkins University
Online Interviews & Lectures– Text,
Audio, and Video
Text
- Wasserman, Elizabeth. “The Fiction of Life.” Atlantic Unbound, 7 May 2003. <http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/int2003-05-07.htm> (17 June 2004).
Audio
- Azar
Nafisi
BBC World Service – The World Today
Date: January 2, 2004
Length: 6 minutes 45 seconds
Voices: Azar Nafisi
Requires: RealPlayer - download free player
-
Azar Nafisi
National Public Radio – Fresh Air
Date: April 4, 2003
Length: 39 minutes 51 seconds
Voices: Azar Nafisi; interviewer Terry Gross
Requires: RealPlayer - download free player
Video
- Azar
Nafisi Lecture for the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict
Arizona State University
Date: February 10, 2004
Length: 55 minutes 53 seconds
Voices: Azar Nafisi; intro. by Linell E. Cady, Director, Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, Arizona State University
Requires: Windows Media Player – download free player
Azar Nafisi’s lecture was delivered in the context of the Center’s public lecture series, “Religion and Conflict: Alternative Visions”.
22 June 2004

