This presentation will survey scholarship in the arts, humanities, and social sciences responding to the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran. Drawing on a bibliography of over one hundred publications—books, journal articles, and edited volume chapters published since the death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini in September 2022—it will outline four main thematic clusters: Chronologies, Culture, Aesthetics, and Nation. These will serve to map shifting interpretations of women’s emancipation, cultural change and resistance, visual activism, and national belonging. The presentation will also reflect on how to research a protest movement from exile and draw attention to under-cited sources, including scholarship produced in Iran.
About the Speaker
Pooyan Tamimi Arab is Associate Professor of Secular and Religious Studies at Utrecht University, a member of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of GAMAAN—the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran. Between 2025 and 2030, he is the principal investigator of Iran’s Secular Shift, a mixed-methods project on non-religion and demands for political secularism funded by the Dutch Research Council.
Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Iranian Studies