The Iran-Iraq War: Literature, Art and Film

Date: 

Friday, February 12, 2016, 9:00am to 4:30pm

Location: 

CMES, Room 102, 38 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA

The Center for Middle Easter Studies presents a symposium

The Iran-Iraq War: Literature, Art and Film
Organized by CMES Director William Granara. The Iran–Iraq War lasted eight years, ended in stalemate, and cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. As this war traumatized both Iraqi and Iranian society, it spawned rich cultural production, as novelists, poets, artists, and filmmakers in both countries reflect upon and confront the experience of this devastating conflict in ways more various and complex than, and frequently at odds with, official narratives of patriotism, heroism, and martyrdom dictated by their respective states. This symposium brings together eight scholars to consider the artistic output of this time and place.

Program

9:00-9:10 am
Welcome and Introduction:
William Granara, Gordon Gray Professor of Arabic and Director, CMES

9:10-9:50
Yousif Hanna (Harvard College)
Abdul Razzak Abdul Wahid: Fighting a Secular Holy War

9:50-10:30
Sheida Dayani (Harvard University)
Reading The Other in War: Americans Reading Iranians Reading Iraqis

10:30-10:40
Break

10:40-11:20
Khaled Al-Masri (Swarthmore College)
Tales of War, Violence, and Loss in the Fiction of Muhsin Al-Ramli

11:20-12:00
Amir Moosavi (NYU)
Cracks in the System: Literary Challenges to the Iranian Narrative of Sacred Defense from Within

12:00-1:00 pm
Break for lunch

1:00-1:40
Ikram Masmoudi (University of Delaware)
Desertion and Art during the Iran-Iraq War

1:40-2:20
William Tamplin (Harvard University)
Intertextuality, Immortality and the Universal Author in Muhammad Khudayyir's 'Yusuf's Tales

2:20-2:30
Break

2:30-3:10
Justine Landau (Harvard University)
The Sacred Defense: Fade to Black - Panahi, Kiarostami, Hatamikia

3:10-3:50
Kamran Rastegar (Tufts University)
The Enemy is Us: Spectral Foes in Iranian War Cinema

3:50-4:45
General Discussion: Sinan Antoon, (NYU) Moderator

This event is open to the public; no registration required.

Contact: Liz Flanagan