Roxanne
Varzi on Iran Today
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On Sunday, July 9, 7 pm, Roxanne Varzi will present her new book, "Warring
Souls: Youth Media, and Martyrdom in Post-Revolution Iran" as part
of Levantine Cultural Center's ongoing literary series, "Maktub:
New Writing From/To the Mideast."
The reading, discussion, signing and reception are cosponsored by the
Pacific Arts Center and Namak Magazine, and takes place at Pacific
Arts Center, 10469 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles 90025.
Reservations are strongly suggested as seating is limited. 310.559.5544.
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With
the first Fulbright grant for research in Iran to be awarded since the
Iranian revolution in 1979, Roxanne Varzi returned to the country her
family left before the Iran-Iraq war. Drawing on ethnographic research
she conducted in Tehran between 1991 and 2000, she provides an eloquent
account of the beliefs and experiences of young, middle-class, urban Iranians.
As the first generation to have come of age entirely in the period since
the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran, twenty-something Iranians
comprise a vital index of the success of the nation's Islamic Revolution.
Varzi describes how, since 1979, the Iranian state has attempted to produce
and enforce an Islamic public sphere by governing behavior and by manipulating
images—particularly images related to religious martyrdom and the
bloody war with Iraq during the 1980s—through films, murals, and
television shows. Yet many of the young Iranians Varzi studied quietly
resist the government's conflation of religious faith and political identity
Highlighting trends that belie the government's claim that Islamic values
have taken hold—including rising rates of suicide, drug use, and
sex outside of marriage—Varzi argues that by concentrating on images
and the performance of proper behavior, the government's campaign to produce
model Islamic citizens has affected only the appearance of religious orthodoxy,
and that the strictly religious public sphere is partly a mirage masking
a profound crisis of faith among many Iranians. Warring Souls is a powerful
account of contemporary Iran made more vivid by Varzi's inclusion of excerpts
from the diaries she maintained during her research and from journal entries
written by Iranian university students with whom she formed a study group.
Questions for Roxanne
Varzi.
Praise for Warring Souls, Youth, Media, and Martyrdom in Post-Revolution
Iran
“Inside and outside the pulse of war in Iran, close up and far away,
Roxanne Varzi weaves her spell; two parts anthropology, one part poetry
and film theory, three parts a soaring imagination and a big heart. How
could you not reach out for a book which situates itself at the intersection
of religion, vision, and power, asking whether the individual ultimately
has the power to turn the image off? A tour de force.”
—Michael Taussig, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
“Warring Souls is an outstanding and nuanced addition to the
literature on contemporary Iranian culture, media, and society.”
—Hamid Naficy, author of An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic
Filmmaking
“A lovely piece of writing, Warring Souls is one of the first
credible accounts of secular Iranians in their twenties, the post-Revolution
generation.”
—Michael M. J. Fischer, author of Mute Dreams, Blind Owls, and
Dispersed Knowledges:
Persian Poesis in the Transnational Circuitry
Roxanne Varzi teaches anthropology at the University of California, Irvine.
She researches and writes about the "culture" produced by the
Iranian government during the Iran-Iraq War. She has also written about
the Iranian cinema that was produced during the war years, in particular
a ten-year long documentary project that brings into question notions
of the real, and is working on a documentary about war culture in Tehran.
Levantine Cultural Center presents public programs that oppose censorship
while promoting literature as a positive force for peace and cross-cultural
understanding. Namak Magazine is an English-language culture and lifestyle
quarterly for a new generation of Iranians across the globe which is non-religious
and non-political.
"The Soul of Post-Revolution Iran", Sunday, July 9, 7 pm sharp,
Pacific Arts Center, 10469 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles 90025. Suggested
donation $10 or purchase of the book Warring Souls. ($22) Reservations
suggested as seating is limited. Call 310.559.5544.
Established in the summer of 2001 by several Americans of Middle Eastern
heritage, Levantine Cultural Center is a not-for-profit arts organization
that produces and supports contemporary arts programs—including literary
evenings, film screenings, exhibits, panel discussions and other events—that
explore the culture, history and politics of the Middle East and Mediterranean,
from Morocco in the west to Afghanistan in the east.
| Reserve with a donation. | Reserve with purchase of the book. |
This event made by possible with the support of Pacific Arts Center and Namak Magazine.
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Levantine Cultural Center, founded in 2001 as a not-for-profit arts organization,
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