ABOUT THE PRESENTATION

My newly-published study, Reading across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism details the dynamic and interconnected ways early twentieth-century Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through new ideas about literature. It demonstrates how nationalism intensified—rather than severed—cultural contact among two Persian-speaking societies amidst the diverging and competing demands of their respective nation-states. Using this study as a starting point for discussion, this presentation asks: Could we speak of a Persophone literature in the twenty-first century? Does such a term bring uninvited baggage in light of conceptual categories such as Francophone and Anglophone? More broadly, where do we find (and fail to find) instantiations of a transnational Persian literature today?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Aria Fani is an assistant professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of Washington in Seattle. Aria serves as the current deputy editor of Iranian Studies and is a co-investigator of the Translation Studies Hub, funded by the Simpson Center for the Humanities. His first book is forthcoming with the University of Texas Press (March 2024), titled Reading across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism. In addition to teaching and research, he engages in social advocacy for non-citizen Americans, particularly asylum seekers from Central America.

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Direct accommodation requests to mohammadi@ucla.edu.

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Download file: Fani-ed-obx.pdf

Sponsor(s): Center for India and South Asia, The Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History, Department of History, UCLA