Book talk: "Heroes to Hostages: America and Iran, 1800-1988"

The CMES New Works Series presents

FIroozeh Kashani-Sabet

Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet received her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead Scholar. She completed her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in history at Yale University. Her book, "Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804-1946" (Princeton University Press, 1999) analyzes the significance of land and border disputes to the process of identity and nation formation, as well as to cultural production, in Iran and its borderlands. It pays specific attention to Iran's shared boundaries with the Ottoman Empire (later Iraq and Turkey), Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf region. Her book was translated into Persian by Kitabsara Press, Tehran, Iran and has been released in paperback by Princeton in 2011. The Turkish translation of this book was published by Istanbul Bilgi University Press.

Her new book, "Heroes to Hostages: America and Iran, 1800-1988" (Cambridge University Press) analyzes the ties between America and Iran not only through international diplomacy, but also through cultural and social history, with a focus on race, gender, and ethnic relations. It draws on a wide array of sources in Persian and English. Dr. Kashani-Sabet worked on this project for two decades, publishing peer-reviewed excerpts from it and delivering numerous public talks related to it, including at Penn.

Contact: Liz Flanagan