EUME Berliner Seminar
Wed 10 Jul 2024 | 15:00–16:30

Women Publishers in Post-revolutionary Iran: Gender, Ideology and the State

Laetitia Nanquette (University of New South Wales, Sydney / EUME Fellow 2024), Chair: Mina Khanlarzadeh (EUME Fellow 2023/24)

Forum Transregionale Studien, Wallotstr. 14, 14193 Berlin

While women writers and readers have significantly shaped Iranian contemporary literature, their dominance has not extended to the publishing sector. A mere 13% of books have been published by women publishers since the 1979 revolution, raising questions about gender imbalances in Iran's literary landscape. This presentation delves into the interplay between gender norms, ideology, and state intervention in the publishing industry. I explore the field of women's publishing before and after the 1979 revolution, present data on current women publishers, analyse their activities and organisational structures, and discuss some case studies of female figures and institutions. The talk aims to offer a fresh perspective on women's role in shaping Iran's literary culture and to shed light on the specificities of Iranian women publishers.

Laetitia Nanquette is Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney. She obtained her BA in Philosophy and Literature from Sorbonne University, studied Persian at INALCO-Paris, followed by a year in Iran, and then completed her MA and PhD at SOAS, University of London (2011). She had a Fulbright Visiting Fellowship at Harvard University, before moving to Australia and UNSW, where she has been researching and teaching since 2013. She works on modern and contemporary Persian literature in a sociological perspective. Her second book Iranian Literature After the Islamic Revolution: Production and Circulation in Iran and the World was published in 2021 by Edinburgh University Press. She is currently working on a new project on the history of publishing in Iran, going back to the 1950s. She also translates short stories and poems of Persian literature into English and French. In the academic year 2023/24, she is an associated EUME Fellow.

Mina Kanlarzadeh is a historian of the modern Middle East. Before joining EUME, she was a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University where she co-authored an upcoming book on the history of science and technology, titled “Revolutionary Engineers: Learning and Politics at AMUT (1966-1979),” under contract with MIT University Press. She holds a PhD from Columbia University’s Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, & African Studies with a thesis in global political thought titled “Alienation, Translation, and Their Postcolonial Critics.” Her research interests are in postcolonial political thought, gender and sexuality, cultural studies, critical theory, and translation and literary studies. Her academic work has been published in Religions, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, and Popular Music and Society. Her poetry and creative non-fiction have been published in Arts of The Working Class, STILL DANCING, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Jadaliyya. In the academic year 2023/24, Mina is a EUME Fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien.

 

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