Iran Archives - Public Seminar

History

The Vision of Hegemony Driving Israel’s Regional Policy

From “periphery doctrine” to open domination

April 28, 2025 • by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Over a long twentieth century of regional tussles, Israel’s local foreign policy focus has shifted from preventing the emergence of a regional hegemon toward a campaign for outright domination. The strategy has shattered the Middle East’s fragile and imperfect status quo, the stability of which was closely connected to the ...

The Vision of Hegemony Driving Israel’s Regional Policy

Literature

A New Media Artist from Tehran at The New School

Her photographs and poetry make the ordinary seem extraordinary

July 3, 2024 • by Alexia Underwood and Zohreh Zadbood

Persian poetry is a treasure. I never thought that I would be interested in poetry in any other language, but when my soul encountered English poetry, I felt a new magic....

A New Media Artist from Tehran at The New School

Democracy

Is Masih Alinejad Really the Voice of the Iranian Women’s Movement?

Or is the women’s rights activist the new face of the U.S. war machine?

September 13, 2023 • by Setareh Shohadaei

Who is Masih Alinejad, and how did she rise to such a position of power and influence in the United States?...

Is Masih Alinejad Really the Voice of the Iranian Women’s Movement?

Democracy

The Women’s Movement in Iran One Year after the Death of Mahsa Amini

A fragile triumph

September 12, 2023 • by Kian Tajbakhsh

As we approach the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in September 2022, what can we expect for the future of Iranian women’s civil rights?...

The Women’s Movement in Iran One Year after the Death of Mahsa Amini

Past Present

The Protests in Iran

Past Present Podcast, Episode 345

October 4, 2022 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

In this episode, Neil, Niki, and Natalia discuss the political protests in Iran....

Middle East & North Africa

Iran’s First Feminist Uprising

Woman! Life! Freedom!

September 28, 2022 • by Kian Tajbakhsh

This is the stirring slogan of the protests that have erupted across Iran, triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year old Kurdish Iranian woman who was visiting Tehran with her family when Iran’s morality police detained her on September 16 for showing too much hair under her hijab ...

Democracy

Political Tensions Rise as COVID-19 Deaths Surpass a Quarter-Million

As support for Trump begins to crumble among Republicans, the White House doubles down on efforts to cripple the incoming Biden administration

November 19, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

Yesterday marked a grim milestone. The official count of Americans dead of coronavirus has topped 250,000. A quarter of a million Americans, lost. Governors, including some Republicans previously opposed to ordering measures to stop the spread of the virus, are now issuing mandatory mask requirements. New York City has reached ...

Political Tensions Rise as COVID-19 Deaths Surpass a Quarter-Million

Democracy

Iran, Impeachment, and Implosion

Trump keeps getting worse — and the crises are interconnected

January 8, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

On December 18 of last year, the House of Representatives voted to impeach in the face of very public Republican obstructionism. Within hours of the vote, Nancy Pelosi announced that she had yet to decide how to move forward with delivering the impeachment articles to the Republican-controlled Senate, and was ...

Democracy

What Are Iranians Dreaming about Today?

Reflections on the Islamic Revolution at 40

August 1, 2019 • by Kian Tajbakhsh

Introduction Almost 20 years ago, I published an article under the title “Political Decentralization and the Creation of Local Government in Iran: Consolidation or Transformation of the Theocratic State?” (Tajbakhsh 2000). The establishment of an elected local government in every city and village in Iran was the most significant institutional innovation ...

Education

Exile from Exile

Make the University in Exile a Sanctuary

March 24, 2017 • by Soheil Asefi

As an independent journalist in Iran, I never thought there would be a day that the paws of state would deprive me of the possibility of returning to the country where I was born and raised. After ten years of professional experience in major Iranian media outlets, I was arrested ...

Uncategorized

ISIS Slaughters, Iranians Get Punished

A threat to democratic efforts in Iran

December 16, 2015 • by Rezvaneh Ganji

Last Tuesday, December 8, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill, supported by the White House, which, if signed into law this week, would punish Iranians for crimes they have never committed. Moreover, it would provoke the hardliners in Iran, only a few months after ...

Uncategorized

Endangered Scholar: Jason Rezaian

An urgent update

October 26, 2015 • by Arien Mack

Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, who received his BA at The New School’s Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, was unjustly convicted this month by the Iranian Revolutionary Court and sentenced to 15 to 20 years after already having been held in Evin Prison in Tehran for more than 15 ...