New Books in Iranian Studies Podcast Por New Books Network arte de portada

New Books in Iranian Studies

New Books in Iranian Studies

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 Interviews with authors and scholars about their new books in Iranian and Persian studies.New Books Network Arte Espiritualidad Historia y Crítica Literaria Islam Mundial
Episodios
  • Vali Nasr, "Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History" (Princeton UP, 2025)

    Vali Nasr, "Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History" (Princeton UP, 2025)
    Jun 25 2025
    Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country’s goals really are. Vali Nasr examines Iran’s political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today’s Iran is pursuing a grand strategy aimed at securing the country internally and asserting its place in the region and the world.Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, and original in-depth interviews with Iranian decision makers, Nasr brings to light facts and events in Iran’s political history that have been overlooked until now. He traces the roots of Iran’s strategic outlook to its experiences over the past four decades of war with Iraq in the 1980s and the subsequent American containment of Iran, invasion of Iraq in 2003, and posture toward Iran thereafter. Nasr reveals how these experiences have shaped a geopolitical outlook driven by pervasive fear of America and its plans for the Middle East.Challenging the notion that Iran’s foreign policy simply reflects its revolutionary values or theocratic government, Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History (Princeton UP, 2025) provides invaluable new insights into what Iran wants and why, explaining the country’s resistance to the United States, its nuclear ambitions, and its pursuit of influence and proxies across the Middle East. Vali Nasr is the Majid Khadduri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He served as the eighth Dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS between 2012 and 2019 and served as Senior Advisor to U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke between 2009 and 2011. He has written a number of books on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. He has advised senior American policymakers, world leaders, and businesses, including the President, Secretary of State, senior members of the Congress, and presidential campaigns. He has written for New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, among others. Professor Nasr serves as the co-director of the SAIS Rethinking Iran Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, sits on the board of a number of academic institutions, has won a number of prominent grants, and holds a chair named after Henry Kissinger at the library of Congress. Sidney Michelini is a post-doctoral researcher working on Ecology, Climate, and Violence at the Peace Research Institute of Frankfurt (PRIF). Book recommendations: The World After Gaza by Pankaj Mishra The Great Transformation: China's Road from Revolution to Reform by Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    54 m
  • Gohar Homayounpour, "Persian Blues, Psychoanalysis and Mourning" (Routledge, 2022)

    Gohar Homayounpour, "Persian Blues, Psychoanalysis and Mourning" (Routledge, 2022)
    Apr 21 2025
    In this episode, Matthew Pieknik and Christopher Russell speak with Gohar Homayounpour about her book Persian Blues, Psychoanalysis and Mourning (Routledge, 2023) Psychoanalysis is, Homayounpour tells us early in the interview, “a profession for dreamers, for people who don't know what to do with themselves. for freaks. This is not a profession for people in suits at universities who have a clear idea of the status quo. It's the absolute opposite. It's the carnival, you know, it's still unofficial, it's the subversive because that's the discourse of the unconscious. But this is a dangerous business, you know, and it should be for both analytic subjects in the room. I'm in favor of absence. I'm in favor of disturbance. I'm in favor of pollution and darkness. I think these are things that need to be celebrated.” In Persian Blues, Psychoanalysis and Mourning, Gohar Homayounpour plays a theme and variations on loss, love, and family against the backdrop of Iran’s chaotic recent past. Homayounpour is simultaneously Shahrzad, the fearless storyteller, and Shahrzad’s analyst: subjecting fairy tales to fierce new insights, while weaving an indigo thread through her own devastation on the death of her father and the wonders and horrors of motherhood. A blue thread, or melody, runs though the separations and emigrations of her family and patients driven or broken apart by war, and likewise through the fraught world inhabited by Persian women. This book breaks new psychoanalytic ground, offering a radical rejection of traditional clichés about Iran, and Iranian women, but its unsparing elegance transcends any political agenda, bridging the ocean of a shared and tragic humanity. Persian Blues, Psychoanalysis and Mourning will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically informed readers, as well as those interested in grief, Iran, and women’s experiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 27 m
  • Sinem Arcak Casale, "Gifts in the Age of Empire: Ottoman-Safavid Cultural Exchange, 1500–1639" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

    Sinem Arcak Casale, "Gifts in the Age of Empire: Ottoman-Safavid Cultural Exchange, 1500–1639" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
    Mar 31 2025
    When the Safavid dynasty, founded in 1501, built a state that championed Iranian identity and Twelver Shi’ism, it prompted the more established Ottoman Empire to align itself definitively with Sunni legalism. The political, religious, and military conflicts that arose have since been widely studied, but little attention has been paid to their diplomatic relationship. In Gifts in the Age of Empire: Ottoman-Safavid Cultural Exchange, 1500–1639 (University of Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Sinem Arcak Casale sets out to explore these two major Muslim empires through a surprising lens: gifts. Countless treasures—such as intricate carpets, gilded silver cups, and ivory-tusk knives—flowed from the Safavid to the Ottoman Empire throughout the sixteenth century. While only a handful now survive, records of these gifts exist in court chronicles, treasury records, poems, epistolary documents, ambassadorial reports, and travel narratives. Tracing this elaborate archive, Dr. Casale treats gifts as representative of the complicated Ottoman-Safavid coexistence, demonstrating how their rivalry was shaped as much by culture and aesthetics as it was by religious or military conflict. Gifts in the Age of Empire explores how gifts were no mere accessories to diplomacy but functioned as a mechanism of competitive interaction between these early modern Muslim courts. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s episodes on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 11 m
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