"Art and Literary Exchange Between Iran, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, and Russia in the 20th Century"
 
The 2021-2022 Colloquium Series of the Iranian Studies Initiative
In collaboration with the UCSB Graduate Center for Literary Research
 

About

The 2021/2022 series of lectures and seminars will address transnational exchanges in roughly three periods: The Tsarist/Qajar Era, the Soviet Union/Pahlavi era, and the Islamic Republic/Post 1991 era, with a focus on Iran, Russia, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia. 

Schedule

October 30 - Katerina Clark (Yale University), "A Persian Poet in Stalin's Russia: Abolquasem Lahuti in Tajikstan" 

February 12 - Sam Hodgkin (Yale University), "Newspaper Poetry and Representative Politics in the Revolutions of 1905-1911” 
 
February 19 - Janet Afary (UC Santa Barbara), “Molla Nasreddin of Tiflis and the Diasporic Milieu that Gave Birth to It”
 
February 26 - Touraj Atabaki (Leiden University), “Theater of Enlightenment/Space of Modernity. Popular Stage in the Caspian Region 1890-1920" 
 
March 5 - Teoman Aktan (University of Istanbul), “The Role of Critical Literature in Reflecting the Socio-Political Issues of the Qajar and the Caucasus”
 
May 21 - Giorgi Papashvili (Tbilisi State Academy of Art), “Image of Iran in the Press of Tiflis from the late 19th century to World War I”
 
May 28 - Rebecca Gould (University of Birmingham), “Two Cosmopolitan Thinkers from the Caucasus: Abbas Quli Agha Bakikhanov and Mirza Fath-Ali-Akhundzadeh”
 

 

 

 

What Graduate Students Are Reading

Daniel Martini is reading "Does Beauty Build Adapted Minds? Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Aesthetics, Fiction and the Arts" by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides (2001) as well as "Sound Shape and Sound Effects of Literary Texts" by Stefan Blohm, Maria Kraxenberger, Christine A. Knoop, Mathias Scharinger (2021), which can be found in De Gruyter's Handbook of Empirical Literary Studies (2021). These pieces inform Daniel's dissertation on the affordances of literature, specifically the means by which texts communicate through non-semantic stylistic features like parallelisms. Daniel also teaches these texts in his undergraduate classes 'Cognitive Approaches to World Literature' and 'Introduction to Critical Theory: Cognitive Literary Studies' - with great input and enthusiasm from students!

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Iman Salty is reading Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality, and Blackness by Nicole R. Fleetwood. 

Troubling Vision examines the constructed visual narratives of Black culture as it has been created and perpetuated by American media. Using critical race theory, media studies, feminist theory, and performance theory, this book exposes how the production and circulation of Black visualities have resulted in troubling conceptions of coded and performative methods for visualizing Black subjects in the public sphere.

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Surojit Kayal is reading The Marvelous Clouds by John Durham Peters.

In The Marvelous Clouds, the author argues that though we often think of media as environments, the reverse is just as true—environments are media. Drawing from ideas implicit in media philosophy, Peters argues that media are more than carriers of messages: they are the very infrastructures combining nature and culture that allow human life to thrive.  

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Mary Okin is reading Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory, and the Avant-Garde by Esther Leslie.

With ruminations on drawing, colour and caricature, on the political meaning of fairy-tales, talking animals and human beings as machines, the book brings to light the links between animation, avant-garde art and modernist criticism, and Leslie reveals how the animation of commodities can be studied as a journey into modernity in cinema. 

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Richard Nedjat-Haiem is reading Broadcasting Change: Arabic Media as a Catalyst for Liberalism by Joseph Baude.

Amid civil war, failing states, and terrorism, Arab liberals are growing in numbers and influence. Advocating a culture of equity, tolerance, good governance, and the rule of law, they work through some of the region’s largest media outlets to spread their ideals within the culture. This book analyzes this trend by portraying the intersection of media and politics in two Arab countries with seismic impact on the region and beyond. 

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James Nichols is reading Exorcismos de la memoria: Políticas y poéticas de la melancolía en la España de la transición by Alberto Medina Dominguez. 

Through an interdisciplinary approach in which the analysis of philosophical, filmic, literary and political texts coexist, the book deals with a reading hypothesis of the period in which the lines of demarcation between the aesthetic and the political are blurred.

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Wendy Sun is reading Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison.

Morrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree--and that came to serve white authors as embodiments of their own fears and desires. Her discussions of the "Africanist" presence in the fiction of various authors leads to a dramatic reappraisal of the essential characteristics of our literary tradition. 

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Ursula Friedman is reading The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China, edited by Wilt L. Idema and Beata Grant.

Because of the burgeoning interest in the study of both premodern and modern women in China, this anthology offers a glimpse of women's writings not only in poetry but in other genres as well, including essays and letters, drama, religious writing, and narrative fiction.

Rachel Feldman is reading Suddenly in the Depths of the Forest (Hebrew: פתאום בעומק היער: אגדה‎) by Amos Oz. 

A dark, yet gen­tle, "fable for all ages" about silence, tolerance, and the role of language, orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in Hebrew in 2005. The narrative is based in a mysterious town without animals or birds. Legend tells that they have been spirited away by the Pied Piper figure of Nehi, the mountain demon. Two children set out into the forest to find out more. 

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Christene d'Anca is reading Marie of France: Countess of Champagne, 1145-1198, by Theodore Evergates. 

Countess Marie of Champagne is primarily known today as the daughter of Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine and as a literary patron of Chrétien de Troyes. In this engaging biography, Theodore Evergates offers a more rounded view of Marie as a successful ruler of one of the wealthiest and most vibrant principalities in medieval France.

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Sponsors Need to Stop Acting Like Mentors

GCLR Sponsorship 

The GCLR welcomes proposals from graduate students and faculty interested in sponsorship opportunities for their interdisciplinary projects and initiatives at UCSB.  Please write to us about your projects to learn about how the GCLR's support can enhance your research in 2022. 
 
Professor Sven Spieker and Rachel Feldman 
 

 

Events

Winter Roundtable: Spotlight on the Art of Translation

In addition to our open call for papers, our Winter Roundtable also invites graduate student translators (and self-translators) willing to share their experiences and craft, scholars whose study and practice are influenced by the myriad of theories of translation across global and local landscapes and imagined worlds. We welcome abstracts that explore the undertaking of an original literary translation (750-1000 words) from and into English (other source-target languages will be considered), that critically consider the art of translation in some form. If selected, please plan on submitting both the original source text along with the translation in the same file as well as a preface of approximately 250 words that discusses the translator’s method of inquiry. In addition to conference funding, the GCLR also offers the opportunity for roundtable papers, including original translations and prefaces, to be published in our forthcoming journal, Exchanges. If you are interested in presenting your work in Winter, please send a 250-word abstract to gclr@complit.ucsb.edu with the subject line "Winter Roundtable" by or before Monday, February 7, 2022. All graduate students in the Humanities are encouraged to apply! 

  1. February 28, 2022 - 11:00am to 12:15pm
Dr. Sam Hodgkin (Yale) "Newspaper Poetry and Representational Politics in the Revolutions of 1905-1911"

 

The GCLR is pleased to announce the next installment of the 2021-2022 Colloquium Series of the Iranian Studies Initiative by Dr. Sam Hogkin (Yale University), entitled "Newspaper Poetry and Representational Politics in the Revolutions of 1905-1911". Please register beforehand to receive the Zoom link. 

  1. February 12, 2022 - 11:00am to 12:00pm
Sponsored Project: The History and Practice of Printing (Organizer: Professor Paddy Fumerton, UCSB English Department)
Professor Fumerton’s exciting project, which the GCLR is proud to co-sponsor, consists of a graduate seminar and colloquia this Spring ‘22, and will eventually result in the construction of a wooden Franklin Press, c. 1750. Participants engaged in the colloquia will learn the history of Gutenberg and his press and well as of Ben Franklin and his press work. The project follows upon a two- quarter colloquium last year (Fall ’21 and Winter ’22), co-taught by Professor Fumerton and Professor Tim Hitchcock (renowned 18th century scholar and digital historian) together with his 3D specialist Dr. Ben Jackson—both from the University of Sussex. In this series of colloquia, students began much of the footwork for the Spring ’22 class, which culminated with their learning the basics of 3D CAD designs and each building aplastic small-scale model of a Franklin Press.The Franklin Press, also known as the Common Press, was the major press of England and the New World America in the 17th and 18th centuries. 
GCLR's Distinguished Visitor for 2021/2022: Dr. Emily Apter (NYU)
The GCLR is pleased to announce our 2021/2022 Distinguished Visitor will be Dr. Emily Apter, the Silver Professor of French and Comparative Literature at NYU, who will join us in the Spring. Check back soon for more details on Dr. Apter's visit. For more information on past visiting scholars' talks and graduate seminars, please see here. 
 
Congratulations to our Fall Roundtable Finalists!

Congratulations to the three finalists from our Fall Roundtable Workshop: Carmen Araujo, Christene D'anca, and James Nate Nicols! Carmen presented “Dialogical exchange and the invention of fictions as a tool for transformation in Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote and two short stories", Christene D'anca presented "Translating Identity: Andrei Codrescu and Cultural Multilingualism", and James Nicols presented on "Discerning Disjunctions in Raúl Ruiz's A TV Dante". Carmen, Christene, and James received sustained feedback on their projects from graduate peers in Spanish and Portuguese, English, Feminist Studies, Film and Media Studies, Comparative Literature, Art, and Religious Studies. We wish Carmen, Chrsistene, and James the best of luck at their future conferences, and extend a formal congratulations to James, whose paper has recently been accepted for publication! If you're interested in submitting for the upcoming Winter Roundtable, please see our Roundtables and Travel Grants Page.

 

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