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Conferences and Exhibitions

THIRTY YEARS ON: THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL IMPACTS OF THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION
JUNE 5 - 6, 2009
at SOAS, University of London

A conference organised by the Centre for Media and Film Studies at SOAS with the support of the Iran Heritage Foundation, the London Middle East Institute and others The revolution of 1979 that brought the Islamic Republic into being has produced profound yet contradictory changes in the social and cultural spheres of Iranian life. While religious ideology and revolutionary fervour remain the credo of the state, the younger generation that makes up seventy percent of the population appear neither very revolutionary nor very ideological in any classic sense, while at the same time they seem to be inventing a new politics for the 21st century. The encounters between religious tradition and secular modernity, between new technologies and old ways of seeing, have a long history in Iran but have become more pronounced over the past thirty years as a religious state attempts to reconfigure public life at the very moment that globalizing trends in ideas and images are felt inside Iran. As formal politics remains highly constrained, new forms are being invented. This produces the ironic consequence that despite a state that discourages many forms of modern entertainment and what it deems as non-Islamic culture, the Internet, music, arts, photography and film have become potent means of communication in Iran. While issues of nuclear weapons and international insecurity dominate the mainstream media inside and outside Iran, issues around women?s rights, personal freedoms and new cultural practices have taken centre stage amongst Iranians themselves. Young men and women activists, lawyers, journalists and workers use the Internet as an effective space for gathering, organizing and communicating their latest messages. Young rap singers invite their contemporaries to ?stand up? and ?persevere?. While women are required to maintain Islamic modesty, they are using film and photography to illustrate their widening horizons and open vision. Rates of transgender surgery and heroin addiction are high. Unemployment and poverty are growing and inflation seems out of control. The family is under pressure when the state does not provide. The international cultural market welcomes contemporary forms of Iranian expression even as they are find limited distribution inside Iran. This conference proposes to focus on these contradictory developments in the social and cultural lives of Iranians since the revolution. It aims to bring some of the best-known practitioners in the media and contemporary arts inside Iran together with academicians and theoreticians of these developments in a unique encounter. The first day will focus mainly on social issues and changing values around women and young people, while the second day will examine novel forms of cultural expressivity including rap music and blogging. Conference events will include live music and comedy. The conference will focus on, but is not limited to, the following topics: ? New roles for women ? Changing family structure and the lives of young people ? Music and creativity ? Varied voices within official media:Radio Javan, Gofto Goo, Payam ? Images beyond Orientalism: the explosion of art and photography ? Youth culture, fashion and design ? Comedy, cartoons and satire ? Tehran as a global city ? Urban change beyond the capital ? Social networking and the internet: from Facebook to Orkut ? New writing cultures from blogging to SMS ? Establishing the cultural industries inside Iran ? Connecting the inside and the outside - diasporas and everyday life A book, edited by Annabelle Sreberny and Massoumeh Torfeh, of selected papers from the conference will be prepared for IBTauris, in the series ?Iran and the Persianate World?. Proposals for papers and for themed panels should be sent to Dr Massoumeh Torfeh, Centre for Media and Film Studies, SOAS, University of London, Russell Square, London WC1H OXG (mt69@soas.ac.uk) by January 15, 2009. All proposals should include an abstract of the proposed paper up to 500 words, a short personal biography and full address details. Panel proposals need to include abstracts of all proposed papers and details of all proposed speakers.

Workshop: "A Social History of Labour in the Iranian Oil Industry, 1908-2008"
International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam December 12-13, 2008
Deadline for abstract submissions: October 15, 2008

The workshop will take place in Amsterdam on 12th and 13th December, 2008. The IISH will cover the cost of travel and accommodation expenses for those who present papers in the workshop. This project, which is in the preliminary stages of background research and planning, has been inspired by a major programme on Global Labour History at the IISH, and the associated discourse that has been developed by debates over the past few years. Evidently, over the past three decades, the monopoly of European and North-American labour historiography has been challenged by the growth of studies on labour history in Africa, Asia and Latin America. However, developments in this terrain have been very slow concerning the Middle East in general and Iran in particular. This project seeks to fill this critical gap. By exploring themes related to the formation and devel-opment of working class within the Iranian oil industry; this workshop aims to investigate three thematic strands. First, it seeks to discuss intensively relevant methodological and conceptual underpinnings as well as historical perspectives as an area of enquiry in constructing a social history of labour in the Iranian oil industry. Second, it intends to examine, interpret and analyse primary sources as well as the context in which these sources were generated. Third, it attempts to map as many relevant connections and relationships as possible and to place the case of Iran in a comparative framework, lead-ing to the formulation of a well-reasoned set of arguments about the historical process of Global Labour History.

Please send your abstracts or any further enquiries to:
Touraj Atabaki or Reza Jafari
International Institute of Social History
P.O.Box 2169
1000 CD Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 6685866
Fax: +31 20 6654181
Abstracts should be sent as PDF or MS Word documents and should include full contact information and a brief academic biography.



Empires and Revolutions: Iranian-Russian Encounters since 1800. June 12-13, 2009, London, UK.

Conference Organized by: the Iran Heritage Foundation, the London Middle East Institute, SOAS. Convened by: Dr Stephanie Cronin, Iran Heritage Foundation Fellow, University of Northampton. Venue: Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS.

This conference will explore the myriad encounters which have taken place between Iranians and Russians since the early nineteenth century up to the present. It will include some discussion of diplomacy and foreign policy but a central objective of the conference will be to widen the scholarly perspective to incorporate an understanding of other types of encounter, whether political, economic, social, cultural, or intellectual, and both friendly and hostile, especially as these developed beyond the official and elite levels. In particular it will attempt to understand the complexities of the impact on Iran of the Russian presence on its northern borders: the very expansion of Tsarist empire during the nineteenth century threatening Iran's independence yet bringing ideas of social-democracy to its doorstep, the Soviet Union in the twen-tieth century similarly contradictory in its effect, sustaining a version of radical Iranian politics while advancing its own strategic interests. The conference will conclude with some consideration of the current state and likely future trajectory of Iranian-Russian relationships.

The topics the conference hopes to examine include, but are not limited to, the following: *The impact on Iran of military defeat by Russia in the early nineteenth century, especially the incentive given to modernization and reform. *Iranian military reform and Russia: Abbas Mirza's regiment of Russian deserters; the Cossack Brigade. *The Griboyedev affair *Shaping the Iranian reform agenda: the role played by diplomatic service in the Russian Empire in the development of officials such as Amir Kabir and Mushir al-Dawlah. *Qajar politics: Russian interventions in the concession era, Liazonov and the Caspian Fisheries, opposition to the Reuter concession and the Tobacco Regie *Conceptualizations of Iran and Iranian society formed by Russian 'Orientalism'. Views of the Russian Empire formulated by Iranians. *The political and social impact on Iran of the massive migration of the Iranian poor to work in the Russian Empire. *The significance of the links formed by Iranian Social-Democrats with parent organizations in the Caucasus. *Cultural exchanges: Iran's adoption of Russian architectural styles, linguistic terminology, styles of dress etc. ? Revolutions in Iran and Russia, 1905-6: The Constitutional Revolution and the 1905 revolution. *The suppression of Iranian constitutionalism by Russia in 1908 and subsequently in 1911 and the Russian occupation of northern Iran *The impact of the 1917 Russian revolution: the formation of the Iranian Communist Party; the Jangali movement *The Soviet occupation of northern Iran 1941-1946: the formation of the Tudeh party; the republics of Azerbaijan and Mahabad *The Soviet Union and the Islamic Revolution *The effect on Iran of the collapse of the Soviet Union *Future relationships: oil, nuclear power and strategic interests.

Abstracts of 250 words should be emailed to: Dr Stephanie Cronin. Closing Date: 1 February 2009.

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