ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Session Chairs and Introductory Speakers:
Manoutchehr Eskandari-Qajar
Homa Katouzian
Ferydoun Barjesteh
Roxane Farmanfarmaian*
Houchang Chehabi
Hand Timmermans
Nahid Mozaffari
Dominic Brookshaw
Conference Presenters:Touraj Atabaki
Dr. Touraj Atabaki holds the endowed chair of 'Social History of the Middle East and Central Asia' at the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Middle East of the Leiden University. He also holds the Senior Research Fellow position at the International Institute of Social History in charge of the Department of the Middle East and Central Asia. Dr. Atabaki has been visiting senior research fellow at the Middle East Centre, St. Antony's College, University of Oxford and visiting fellow at the Academy of Sciences of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. He is a member of the Academic Committee of the International Institute of Asian Studies and member of editorial boards of: Journal of Iranian Studies, Journal of Azerbaijani Studies, Review of International Affairs, Journal of Iran and the Caucasus and Journal Central Asian Survey. His main research interest is historiography of everyday life and comparative subaltern history.
He can be reached at: tat@iisg.nl
Ferydoun Barjesteh
Ferydoun Barjesteh is the Vice-President of IQSA and Editor-in-Chief of its Journal Qajar Studies, which is now in its eighth year. He has published extensively on Iranian history, in particular focusing on genealogical research. He is the director of IQSA's Fath Ali Shah Project, tracing the descendants of Fath Ali Shah in the male and female lines. He is also the founder of the DNA research project on the Qajars, which has already yielded groundbreaking results. He has written and co-edited many volumes on Qajar history, including Qajar Era Dress; Health, Hygiene and Beauty in the Qajar Era, the Montabone Album and a volume on the work of Sevruguin.
He can be reached at: publisher@barjesteh.nl
Houchang Chehabi
Dr. Houchang E. Chehabi studied geography at the University of Caen and international relations at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris before going to Yale University, where he took his PhD in political science in 1986. He then taught at Harvard University and UCLA, and in 1998 became a professor of international relations and history at Boston University. He is the author of Iranian Politics and Religions Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (London: I.B. Tauris, 1990), principal author of Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the last 500 years (Oxford: Centre for Lebanese Studies, 2006), and co-author, with Juan J. Linz, of Sultanistic Regimes (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998). His articles have appeared in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Daedalus, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Government and Opposition, International Journal of the History of Sport, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Iranian Studies, Political Science Quarterly, and several edited volumes. Currently his main research interest is the cultural history of Iran since the nineteenth century.
He can be reached at: chehabi@bu.edu
Stephanie Cronin
Dr. Stephanie Cronin is Iran Heritage Foundation Fellow in Iranian History, University College, Northampton. She is the author of The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910-1926, (I. B. Tauris, 1997) and editor of The Making of Modern Iran; State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921-1941 (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003) and Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left (RoutledgeCurzon, 2004). Her most recent work looks at subaltern responses to modernity in early Pahlavi Iran. Tribal Politics in Iran: Rural Conflict and the New State appeared in 2006. An edited collection, Subalterns, Marginality and the State: Strategies of Survival, Protest and Resistance in the Middle East and North Africa, also appeared in 2006.
She can be reached at: scronin2002@aol.com
Elton Daniel
Layla Diba
Dr. Layla S. Diba held the post of Director and Chief Curator of the Negarestan Museum of 18th and 19th century Iranian Art from its inception in 1975 until 1978. Under her leadership, the holdings of the museum increased from a few hundred items to more than three thousand artworks. After moving to the United States in 1979, she continued her scholarly activities and acted as advisor to museums, corporations and cultural societies, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum, The Louvre, the Textile Museum of Washington, D.C., The Guggenheim Museum and the Mobil Oil Corporation. In 1990, Layla S. Diba joined the Brooklyn Museum, where she served as Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art (January 1990 to 1998) and as Hagop Kevorkian Curator of Islamic Art (1998 to December, 2000). During her tenure at the Brooklyn Museum in the fall of 1998, Dr. Diba organized the highly successful exhibition, Royal Persian Paintings: The Qajar Epoch (1785-1925), the first major international exhibition on 18th and 19th century Persian art and culture. The exhibition received exceptional press coverage and was seen by more than 150,000 visitors during its international tour. Royal Persian Paintings was also exhibited at the UCLA at Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and at the Brunei Gallery of London University in London in spring-summer 1999. As part of the exhibition, Dr. Diba also edited and co-authored the accompanying catalogue publication, Royal Persian Paintings: The Qajar Epoch, 1785-1925.
From 1994 to 2004, Dr. Diba was appointed Visiting Professor at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture. She continues to write, lecture and advise on various aspects of Islamic Art, specializing in Persian Art of the 17th century and later. In 2004, she curated an exhibition of the contemporary Iranian photographer, Sadegh Tirafkan at the Lehmann-Maupin Gallery in New York and sat on an advisory panel for the Islamic World Arts Initiative of the Doris Duke Foundation. In 2006, she was Islamic Curator for the Cultural Development Master Plan for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. She is currently working on a catalogue of the Wolf collection of Turkoman jewelry, to be published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dr. Diba is also a collector of Persian and Islamic art and a benefactor and advocate for numerous Persian cultural causes. In 2009, Dr. Diba’s public speaking engagements will include the Keynote Speech at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Conference on Qajar Textiles as well as the prestigious Calderwood Annual Lecture on Islamic Art at The Harvard Art Museum. In addition to her lecture engagements, Dr. Diba also serves on the Boards of the Encyclopedia Iranica and Soudavar Memorial Foundations.
She can be reached by writing to: president@qajarstudies.org
Mansoureh Ettehadieh
Dr. Mansoureh Ettehadieh graduated from Edinburgh University with an MA in history in 1956 and obtained her PhD in 1979 from the same University. She taught history in the department of history in Tehran University from 1963 to 2000. She founded the publishing firm Nashr-e Tarikh-e Iran in 1983, which specializes in the history of the Qajar period. She is currently engaged in working on public opinion from 1870 to 1920. She has written and co-edited a number of works on this period, some of which are: Khaterat va Asnad Hosein Qoli Khan Nezam al-Saltaneh (Three volumes of the correspondence and diaries of Hosein Qoli Khan Nezam al-Saltaneh), 3 volumes, 1984, co-edited with S. Sadvandian; Majles va Entekahbat az Mashruteh ta Payan-e Qajariyeh (Parliament and Elections from the Constitutional Revolution to the end of the Qajar Period), 1996; Majmueh-ye Asnad va Mokatebat-e Nosrat al-Dowleh Firuz (The Correspondence and documents of Nosrat al-Dowleh Firuz), 1999, co-edited with S. Pira; Inja Tehran Ast, Majmueh-ye Maqalati dar bareh-ye Tehran, 1269HQ/1344 (A Collections of Essays on the Social and Economic Conditions of Tehran, 1850 -1925), 1998; Zendegani Siyasi va Asnad-e Mohajerat (The life and the correspondence of Reza Qoli Khan Nezam al-Saltaneh), 3 volumes, 2000; and Peydayesh va Tahavol-e Ahzab-e Siyasi Mashrutiyat (The Origin and Development of Political Parties during the Constitutional Revolution), reprinted 2002. Dr. Ettehadieh has also written two novels: Zendegi Bayad Kard, Zendegi Khali Nist.
She can be reached at: nti@neda.net
Manoutchehr Eskandari-Qajar
Dr. Manoutchehr Eskandari-Qajar is Professor of Political Science and Director of Middle Eastern Studies at Santa Barbara City College (SBCC). He is also President and co-founder of the International Qajar Studies Association (IQSA). Together with Mr. Ferydoun Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn, editor-in-chief, he edits the Journal of the International Qajar Studies Association (IQSA), Qajar Studies, which is now in its eighth year and the latest issue of which is dedicated to the theme of this year's conference, Social Positioning in the Qajar Era. His recent publications include: "The Story of the 'Fair Circassian' and Mirza Abol Hassan Khan Shirazi, 'Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary' of Fath Ali Shah to the Court of St. James," in Qajar Studies, Vol. VII, June 2007; Guest Editor, Iranian Studies, Vol. 40, September 2007; "Novellas as Morality Tales and Entertainment in the Newspapers of the late Qajar Period: Yahya Mirza Eskandari's 'Eshgh-e Doroughi' and 'Arousi-e Mehrangiz', in Iranian Studies, Vol. 40, September 2007; "Between Scylla and Charybdis: Policy-making Under Conditions of Constraint in Early Persia," in War and Peace in Qajar Persia, ed. Roxane Farmanfarmaian, Routledge, 2008; and "The Message of the Negarestan Mural of Fath Ali Shah and His Sons: Snapshot of Court Protocol or Determinant of Dynastic Succession," in Qajar Studies, Vol. VIII, June 2008.
He can be reached at: president@qajarstudies.org
Hafez Farmayan*
Dr. Hafez Farmayan is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his M.A. from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from Georgetown University. He began his academic career at the University of Tehran where he held the chair of European history and became the founder and Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at that institution. Before coming to Texas he held a visiting Professorship at Columbia University. Professor Farmayan's areas of interest are modern Islamic history, nineteenth century Iran and political history of modern Europe. He has written numerous articles in International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, The Middle East Journal, Iranian Studies, and Muslim World. His books include Europe in the Age of Revolution, Travels of Hajji Pirzadeh, and A Shi'ite Pilgrimage to Mecca. Professor Farmayan has an intimate knowledge of Middle Eastern Culture and has lectured extensively on the subject of cultural interactions between the United States and contemporary societies of the Middle East. In his honor a Festschrift was published in 2002 entitled Society and Culture in Qajar Iran, to which a number of his colleagues and former students contributed.
He can be reached at: farmayan@mail.utexas.edu
Roxane Farmanfarmaian*
Roxane Farmanfarmaian graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Middle Eastern Studies and is currently working on her doctorate at the University of Cambridge where she is the editor of the Cambridge Security Review. Before the revolution she founded the Iranian, an independent weekly newsmagazine published in Iran. She has reported on Iranian affairs from Moscow in the early 1980s and has been a contributing writer to the The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor and has been West Coast editor of Publisher's Weekly. She is co-author with her late father Manucher Farmanfarmaian of Blood & Oil: Memoirs of a Persian Prince (Random House 1997), and editor of War and Peace in the Qajar era (Routledge 2008).
She can be reached at: rf236@cam.ac.uk
Ali Gheissari
Dr. Ali Gheissari is Professor of History at the University of San Diego with research interest in the intellectual and political history of modern Iran. He studied at Tehran University and Oxford, and has held visiting appointments at Tehran University, Oxford, UCLA and Brown University. His publications include: Contemporary Iran: Society, Economy, Politics (ed., Oxford University Press, forthcoming); Tabriz and Rasht in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (ed., Tehran: Nashr-e Tarikh-e Iran, 2008); Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty (co-author, Oxford University Press, 2006); Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century (University of Texas Press, 1998 and 2008); Persian Translation of Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Ethics (with Hamid Enayat, Tehran: Khwarazmi, 1991); “Truth and Method in Modern Iranian Historiography and Social Sciences” (Critique, 1995); “Satire in the Iranian Constitutional Press” (Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 2005); “Merchants without Borders: Trade, Travel, and a Revolution in late Qajar Iran” (in War and Peace in Qajar Persia, ed. Roxane Farmanfarmaian, Routledge, 2008). Dr. Gheissari’s current research is on the history of Iran’s judiciary. He is also on the editorial board of Iran Studies series, published by E. J. Brill.
He can be reached at: alig@sandiego.edu
Homa Katouzian
Dr. Homa Katouzian is the Iran Heritage Foundation Research Fellow, St Antony’s College, and Member, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. His current research interest is in Iranian history and politics, the comparative sociology of Iranian and European history, and modern and classical Persian literature. He has published both in English and Persian. His recent books in English are, Sadeq Hedayat: His Works and His Wondrous World (ed., 2008), Iran in the 21st Century: Politics, Economics and Conflict (co-ed. 2008), Iranian History and Politics: The Dialectic of State and Society (paperback, 2007), Sa’di, The Poet of, Life, Love and Compassion (2006), State and Society in Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (paperback, 2006), Sadeq Hedayat; The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer (paperback, 2002), and Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (second edition, 1999). His book on the history of Iran is due to be published by Yale University Press in 2009.
He can be reached at: homa.katouzian@sant.ox.ac.uk
Vanessa Martin
Dr. Vanessa Martin is Reader in Middle Eastern History at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has written three books, Islam and Modernism: The Iranian Revolution of 1906 (IBTauris 1989), Creating an Islamic State (IBTauris 2000), and The Qajar Pact: Bargaining, Protest and the State in Qajar Iran (IBTauris 2005). She also has an edited volume on Anglo Iranian Relations since 1800 (IBTauris 2005).
She can be reached at: v.martin@rhul.ac.uk
Ali Miransari
Dr. Ali Miransari is the head of Persian literature for the Encyclopedia of Iran (Danishnama-yi Iran) at the Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia. His major field of research is Persian dramatic literature in the Qajar period. He has published several works on Qajar theatre and has delivered papers at various conferences, including the 2006 conference (The Iranian Constitutional Revolution 1906-1911) in Oxford organised by the Iran Heritage Foundation (http://www.iranheritage.org/mashrutehconference/default.htm).
He can be reached at: alimiransari@hotmail.comJennifer Scarce
Jennifer Scarce B.A., F.S.A.(Scot) was Curator of Middle Eastern Cultures, National Museums of Scotland. She is now an Honorary Lecturer, School of Design, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, at the University of Dundee, Scotland, a research and travel consultant, freelance curator and author. She has arranged many permanent and temporary exhibitions of Middle Eastern culture for the National Museums of Scotland. She has travelled widely in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe -- Iran, Turkey, the Arab Gulf states, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco,Tunisia, Romania and Bosnia -- both collecting contemporary textiles and dress for the Museum and also pursuing research projects such as carpet weaving in Romania, Ottoman Turkish court dress, the tilework decoration of 19th century Iranian architecture and the material culture of the North Africa and the Arab world. Her many publications include a survey of Romanian carpet weaving, articles and books on Middle Eastern dress, Kuwait and Iran and most recently Domestic Culture in the Middle East. She is also interested in European travellers to the Middle East especially those of Scottish origin. She has lectured widely for conferences and groups and has accompanied many tours to the Middle East , North Africa and Romania.
She can be reached at: jennifer@scarce.abelgratis.co.uk
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* To Be Confirmed
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