Negar Mottahedeh
Encyclopedia
Negar Mottahedeh is a cultural critic and film theorist specializing in interdisciplinary and feminist contributions to the fields of Middle Eastern Studies and Film Studies. She is known for her work on Iranian Cinema, but has also published on the history of reform and revolution, on Bábism
, Qajar history, performance traditions in Iran, the history of technology, visual theory, Majid Tavakoli
and the Men in Scarves Movement (also known as the "I am Majid" campaign), and the role of social media in the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests. She received her Ph.D in 1998 from the University of Minnesota. She has taught at the Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio and in 2002 began teaching at Duke University, where she is Associate Professor in the Program in Literature and in the Women’s Studies Program. Mottahedeh curated the "Reel Evil: Films from the Axis of Evil" film festival with Miriam Cooke
in 2003 and created Brainquake with Golbarg Bashi
in response to Boobquake
on April 26, 2010.
Bábism
The Babi Faith is a religious movement that flourished in Persia from 1844 to 1852, then lingered on in exile in the Ottoman Empire as well as underground. Its founder was Siyyid `Alí Muhammad Shirazi, who took the title Báb—meaning "Gate"—from a Shi'a theological term...
, Qajar history, performance traditions in Iran, the history of technology, visual theory, Majid Tavakoli
Majid Tavakoli
Majid Tavakoli is a prominent student leader and political prisoner in Iran. He is a member of the Islamic Students' Association at Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology, where he studied shipbuilding...
and the Men in Scarves Movement (also known as the "I am Majid" campaign), and the role of social media in the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests. She received her Ph.D in 1998 from the University of Minnesota. She has taught at the Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio and in 2002 began teaching at Duke University, where she is Associate Professor in the Program in Literature and in the Women’s Studies Program. Mottahedeh curated the "Reel Evil: Films from the Axis of Evil" film festival with Miriam Cooke
Miriam Cooke
Miriam Cooke is an American born, British trained academic in Middle Eastern/Arab world studies. She focuses on modern Arabic literature, and connecting women's narratives of war stories to a critical reassessment of their role in the public sphere....
in 2003 and created Brainquake with Golbarg Bashi
Golbarg Bashi
Golbarg Bashi , born in Ahvaz, Iran, is an Iranian-Swedish feminist professor of Iranian Studies at Rutgers University in the US. Among other topics, Bashi has published works and given talks about human rights in the Middle East and the situation of women in Iran.-Biography:Golbarg Bashi was born...
in response to Boobquake
Boobquake
Boobquake, which took place on April 26, 2010, was devised by Jennifer McCreight, then a senior in the Purdue University College of Science, in response to news reports that Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi had blamed women who dress immodestly for causing earthquakes...
on April 26, 2010.
Books
- Displaced Allegories: Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema. Duke University Press, 2008.
- Representing the Unpresentable: Images of Reform from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Syracuse University Press, 2008.
Articles
- "Iranian Cinema in the Twentieth Century: A Sense History." Iranian Studies 42:4 (September 2009).
- “Collection and Recollection: on studying the early history of the motion pictures in Iran." Early Popular Visual Culture (June, 2008).
- "Karbala Drag Kings and Queens." The Drama Review (Winter, 2005), pp. 73-85.
- "Ruptured Spaces, Effective Histories: Tahirih in History: Perspective on Qurrat al-‘Ayn from East and West. Studies in the Babi and Baha’i Religions, vol. 16 (Fall, 2004).
- "Off the Grid: Reading Iranian Memoirs in Our Time of Total War." Middle East Research and Information Project (September 2004), online at merip.org.
- "Life is Color! Towards a transnational feminist analysis of Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Gabbeh." Special issue on film, in Feminism Signs (2004).
- "Where are Kiarostami's Women?" On the Foreignness of Film (2004).
- "Resurrection, Return, Reform: Ta’ziyeh as Model for Early Babi Historiography." Iranian Studies 32:3 (2000), pp 387-399.
- "Bahram Bayza`i's Maybe Some Other Time: The un-Present-able Iran." Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture and Media Studies, 43 (2000), pp. 163-191.
- "Images of Women: [08] Middle East." In Angharad N. Valdivia, ed., The Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women's Studies (2000).
- "Bahram Bayza`i: Filmography." in Life and Art: the New Iranian Cinema (1999), pp 74-82. Translated into Persian as Zindihgi va honar: sinama-yi novin-i Iran, trans. by Parvanih Faridi and Omid Rawhani (Tehran, 1379), pp. 101-110,
- "The Mutilated Body of the Modern Nation." Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 18:2 (1998), pp. 38-50, online at Baha'i Library Online.
- "Scheduled For Judgment Day: The Ta’ziyeh Performance in Qajar Persia and Walter Benjamin’s Dramatic Vision of History." Theatre InSight 8:1 (Spring, 1997), pp. 12-20.
- "Ruptured Spaces and Effective Histories: The Unveiling of the Babi Poetess Qurrat al-’Ayn-Tahirih in the Gardens of Badasht." First published in UCLA Historical Journal 17 (1997): 59-81, then in H-Bahai's Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Studies, 2:2 (February, 1998) — a refereed on-line journal — at h-net.org.
Other
- Co-curated with Hamid DabashiHamid DabashiHamid Dabashi born 1951 in Ahvaz is an Iranian-American Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City.He is the author of over twenty books...
and La Frances Hui the Asia SocietyAsia SocietyThe Asia Society is a non-profit organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States and around the world Hong Kong, Manila, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, and Melbourne...
's tribute to the silenced Iranian director Jafar PanahiJafar PanahiJafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the...
(February 25-March 11, 2011). - "Where the Future Nests: 19th Century Babi and Bahai Photography." Lecture hosted by the Ezri Center for Iran & Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Haifa (April 23 2009), online at gulfc.haifa.ac.il.
- "Negative Refractions: Recent feminist writing on the Middle East." Women's Studies Quarterly (Winter 2006).
- Review of "Abbas Kiarostami" by Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa and Jonathan Rosenbaum". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 29:3 (August 2009).
- Review of "The Making of a Rebel Filmmaker: Makhmalbaf at Large by Hamid Dabashi". (Winter 2009).
- Review of Ed. Richard Tapper, "The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation, and Identity". Iranian Studies 38:2 (June 2005), pp. 341-344.
- Review of "Iranian Islam: The Concept of the Individual by Nader Ahmadi and Fereshteh Ahmadi". Iranian Studies 33:1-2 (2005).
- Review of Hamid Naficy, "An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking". Iranian Studies 36:3 (2004).
Awards
- Persian Heritage Foundation "Latifeh Yarshater Award" for Representing the Unpresentable (2008)
- Persian Heritage Foundation Book Award for Displaced Allegories (2008)
External links
- Negar Mottahedeh's technology and the human experience blog
- Negar Mottahedeh's NYC blog
- Duke Program in Literature
- Duke Women's Studies
- Duke Islamic Studies Center
- Duke Live Online Office Hours with Negar Mottahedeh Ustream
- Mideast Youth Podcast interview with Negar Mottahedeh
- Duke University Press interviews Negar Mottahedeh on the 30th Anniversary of the Islamic Republic of Iran
- Second Cinema interviews Negar Mottahedeh on Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema
- Tehran Bureau interviews Negar Mottahedeh