March 4, 2023
2023-03-04T10:00:00
1585 Wesleyan Drive
Norfolk, VA 23502
$10 suggested donation. Students and educators free.
World Affairs Council of Greater Hampton Roads presents "Iran at a Crossroads" with Farzaneh Milani
Saturday, March 4, 2023
By the fall of 2022, Iran was in a state of turmoil due to widespread protests against government-enforced wearing of the hijab, a failing economy, an ineffective new president, and the looming succession of the country’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Abroad, renewal of the Iran nuclear deal seemed doubtful and tensions remain high between Iran, Israel, and Arab states. Many Iranians have lost hope of a better future, and the country seems at a crossroads. How should the United States deal with it?
Farzaneh Milani completed her graduate studies in Comparative Literature in 1979 at the University of California in Los Angeles. Her dissertation, “Forugh Farrokhzad: A Feminist Perspective” was a critical study of the poetry of a pioneering Iranian poet. A past president of the Association of Middle Eastern Women Studies in America, Milani was the recipient of All University Teaching Award in 1998 and nominated for Virginia Faculty of the Year in 1999.
Milani has published over 100 articles, epilogues, forewords, and afterwords in Persian and in English. She has served as the guest editor for two special issues of Nimeye-Digar, Persian Language Feminist Journal (on Simin Daneshvar and Simin Behbahani), IranNameh (on Simin Behbahani), and Iranian Studies: Journal of the International Society for Iranian Studies (on Simin Behbahani). She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Ms. Magazine, Readers Digest, USA Today, Daily Progress, and N.P.R.’s All Things Considered. She has presented more than 250 lectures nationally and internationally. A former director of Studies in Women and Gender and Chair of the department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures, Milani is Raymond J. Nelson Professor of Persian Literature and Women Studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She was a Carnegie Fellow (2006-2007).
The Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy invited Milani to join it as a member of its Board of External Experts for Literature in 2021. Milani will serve in that capacity for three years.