Who's afraid of Iran? Live from the NYPL
I think this will be a fascinating discussion, particularly for those of you who have read "Reading Lolita," since the author is on the panel!
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY presents
Who's Afraid Of Iran?
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
7:00pm
As the media tracks Iran's growing nuclear arsenal and its potential as an ideological powder keg, the Islamic Republic looms larger than ever in the American imagination. Yet the country remains grossly misunderstood - seen either as the third pillar of Bush's "axis of evil" or as a nation teeming with teens who clamor for democracy, Western-style. Beneath it all, Iranians - and their lives in the Islamic Republic - remain shrouded in myth and stereotypes. So who in the world are Iranians in these shifting times?
A CONVERSATION Lila Azam Zanganeh, who aims "to corrode fixed ideas and turn cultural and political clichés on their heads" and is editor of My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices, will have a conversation with Azar Nafisi, on the chrysalid of identity politics versus the durable pigments of individual imagination; when politics collide with poetry.
A DISCUSSIONFour Iranian women,
Shirin Neshat, Roya Hakakian, Azadeh Moaveni, and
Lila Azam Zanganeh, moderator, will discuss the problematic notion of Iranian identity: Who are we in these shifting times and how do we devise ways to formulate it? The panel will give their perspectives on race, religion, and sexuality in - and in exile from - the Islamic Republic.
A READINGOscar-nominated actress Shohreh Aghdashloo will read from the book.
MUSICSussan Deyhim, the most famous Persian vocalist, will perform.
This event is co-sponsored by PEN American Center.
About Azar Nafisi: Azar Nafisi is a professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and the author of
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, a compassionate and often harrowing portrait of the Islamic revolution in Iran. She has lectured and written extensively on the political implications of literature and culture, as well as the human rights of the Iranian women and girls and the important role they play in the process of change for pluralism and an open society in Iran. Azar Nafisi has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Her cover story, "The Veiled Threat: The Iranian Revolution's Woman Problem" published in The New Republic has been reprinted into several languages. She is the author of Anti-Terra: A Critical Study of Vladimir Nabokov's Novels. She is currently working on two books, one tentatively titled The Republic of the Imagination, which is about the power of literature to liberate minds and peoples, and the other, Things I Have Been Silent About, about culture, history, and loss.
About Shirin Neshat: Shirin Neshat is a visual artist known for her photography and video installations. Her work has been showcased around the world, most notably at the
Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Shirin Neshat began stirring controversy with her photo series Women of Allah. The series drew international attention as well as widespread criticism that Neshat was romanticizing Islamic fundamentalism. Neshat moved on to video installations showcasing allegorical narratives about gender issues in Islam. Her work has been exhibited around the world, and she is the recipient of many awards, including the First International Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and, most recently, at Hiroshima City Museum of Art, Hiroshima, Japan.
About Roya Hakakian: Roya Hakakian is a journalist and writer. She has collaborated with the journalism units on 60 Minutes, A&E's "Travels With Harry" hour, and ABC Documentary Specials with the late Peter Jennings, Discovery and The Learning Channel. She writes for numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and is a contributor to the Weekend Edition of NPR's All Things Considered. She is a founding member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations. She provides commentary on the subject of the Middle East and human rights to the media and has appeared on CSPAN-Book TV, CNN International, CBS Early Show, and Now with Bill Moyers. Hakakian is the author of two collections of poetry in Persian and Journey from the
Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran.
About Shohreh Aghdashloo:An Iranian actress whose strong political beliefs almost led her to a career as a journalist, Shohreh Aghdashloo has reached more people by working in film and theater. She was a 2003 Academy Awards nominee for best actress in a supporting role for her work in
House of Sand and Fog. Born in Tehran to an intellectual, creative family, Aghdashloo was drawn to the theater at an early age, and by her twenties was performing in various cutting-edge performance groups, among them the acclaimed Drama Workshop of Tehran. She has worked with directors Abbas Kiarostami and Ali Hatami - two towering figures of the nascent Iranian New Wave. In 2006, she will appear in X-Men 3, the third film adaptation of the long-running comic book, as Dr. Kavita Rao. She is also slated to play Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary, in the biblical film Nativity.
About Azadeh Moaveni:Moaveni grew up in California, her parents having left Iran in 1976, three years before the Islamic revolution. The unresolved tension she felt between her cultural identity as an Iranian and an American led her to go to Iran as a journalist. For two years she wrote about Iran for Time, finding a complex and varied reality. Her stay was bracketed by the pro-democracy student demonstrations of 1999 and President Bush's "axis of evil" speech in 2001, after which the government clamped down hard on dissent and on journalists. She was compelled to leave in fear for her safety. Her book Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran is the account of Moaveni's time in Iran, and of her quest to better understand her cultural identity.
About Lila Azam Zanganeh: Lila Azam Zanganeh was born in Paris to Iranian parents. She is a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, where she studied literature and philosophy, and holds a masters degree in international affairs from Columbia University. She initially moved to the United States to teach literature, cinema and Romance languages at Harvard University. She is a contributor to Le Monde and has been published in The New York Times, The Herald Tribune, The Nation, and La Repubblica. Her first book, My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes, is a literary antidote to disinformation on Iran and Iranians with essays, interviews, photos and illustrations from an array of Iranian literary and artistic talents. Their interpretations veer between hilarity and despair, and offer color-studded and incisive perspectives on life, identity, and sexuality in - and in exile from - the Islamic Republic. She is currently at work on a book about Vladimir Nabokov.
About Sussan Deyhim: Sussan Deyhim is a composer, vocalist and performance artist who has been at the forefront of experimental music internationally for over two decades. Deyhim's music combines extended vocal techniques, digital processing, and the ancient mysticism of Middle Eastern music to create a deeply moving fusion of East and West. Among her many performances are a one-woman show Vocodeliks, commissioned by the Whitney Museum of Art; and her collaborations with visual artist/filmmaker Shirin Neshat, including the video Turbulent, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennial and their multimedia performance Logic of the Birds. Deyhim's most recent projects include a multimedia opera Zarathustra's Mother, a collaboration with Polish composer Jan Kazcmarek, and a collaboration with composer Paul Haslinger and the legendary vocalist Nona Hendrix.
TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
$15 general admission; $10 library donors, seniors and students with identification
Call SmartTix: 212.868.4444 or
Buy Tickets
ZADIE SMITH in conversation with Kurt Andersen
In lieu of our recent book club reading, it may be interesting to hear the author speak and discuss her work!
LIVE from the NYPL
Zadie Smith's novels explore the territory shared by what are normally considered separate worlds: the personal and political, the academy and the "street," and the intersection of the increasingly multicultural societies of both England and America. She will discuss her work with novelist and commentator Kurt Andersen.
This event is co-sponsored by PEN American Center in association with PEN World Voices, The New York Festival of International Literature.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
at 3:30 PM
South Court Auditorium About Zadie Smith Zadie Smith was born in North London in 1975. Her first novel, White Teeth, won the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Smith's other works include The Autograph Man and On Beauty.
About Kurt AndersenKurt Andersen is the author of several books, including the novel Turn of the Century. His second novel, Wonderstruck, will be published early next year. He is the host of Studio 360, the Peabody Award-winning public radio program about culture, and writes a column for New York magazine. He co-founded Spy magazine and Inside.com, and served as editor-in-chief of New York. He was previously a columnist for The New Yorker and the architecture and design critic for Time.
$15 general admission and $10 library donors, seniors and students with valid identification
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ma (“Earth”) at Lincoln Center
For our birthdays, we've been invited to see the following performance at Lincoln Center -- we're looking forward to it!
Great Performersma (“Earth”)
Wed, Apr 26; Fri, Apr 28; Sat, Apr 29, 8:00pm
Rose TheaterThe New York premiere of a commissioned work by
Akram Khan, the phenomenal Anglo-Indian choreographer and dancer whose blend of modern and kathak dance has created a unique and beautiful movement idiom. Co-commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. Post-concert discussion with Akram Khan on April 28.
April's Book: Cry, The Beloved Country
We'll be reading
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton this month. Thanks for the suggestion, Roberta! (This also happens to be Oprah's pick of the month too!)
Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s.
We'll be meeting at the end of April or beginning of May to discuss this classic.
FGTH III - Results and Photos
Three teams racing for glory and a grand prize and sadly, only one of them can win! Today's Frankie Goes to Hoboken event went fantabulously. Team B(hawna) won with 135 points, Team Y(esh) came in at 115 and Team R(achel) came in next with 100!
We also had another exciting Connect-4 showdown between Karthik "Kool Man" Sarma and Godrey "G-Money" Chan.
Photos from the hunt and after-party are at:
Team B's Hunt
Team Y's Hunt and the Games After
We're going to Africa!
Hi Gang -- here are some choices for the next meeting in April or May. Thought it would be fun to go with a theme -- think of the restaurant possibilities! Take a look at the following (they're listed in no particular order) and cast your vote!Thanks,RobertaBooktrip to AfricaIsak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller by Judith Thurman495 pages (yikes); winner of the National Book AwardJudith Thurman's biography of Karen Blixen, Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller, is a satisfying work. Well researched, sympathetic, fair and imaginative, it tells the story of an enigmatic and at times infuriating woman, a distinguished writer who also led an extremely interesting and varied life, spanning two continents and more than two cultures. An excellent subject, it is treated here with the respect and attention that it deserves and with the impartiality that time and the author's intelligence have made possible. Karen Blixen died in 1962; here, 20 years later, she emerges from myth and anecdote and partisan emotion as a major figure but mysterious to the last. Witch, sibyl, lion hunter, coffee planter, aristocrat and despot, a paradox in herself and a creator of paradoxes, a desperately sick but indestructible woman, she steps forth from these pages with all the force of legend and all the human detail and frailty of a real person made by real circumstance. This, like the best biographies, is a book in which the reader can live, and which, despite its wealth of insight, leaves final judgments to the reader. It is a fine achievement. For the rest of the New York Times review: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E1D81439F937A25752C1A964948260My Son's Story by Nadine Gordimer277 pages; winner of Nobel PrizeGordimer's new novel, about a colored South African family ravaged by the father's affair with a white human rights advocate, probes with breathtaking power and precision the complexities of "love, love/hate," and the interplay of public and private reality. First-person narration shows son Will's struggle to deal with confusion and bitterness after discovering father Sonny's infidelity; alternating third-person sequences depict Sonny's evolution from a committed schoolteacher and devoted husband/father into a resistance worker for whom the movement itself ultimately becomes a second family--one his loyal wife Aila cannot share with him, though his lover Hannah does. The book's richness of sensation and consciousness is such that Gordimer's eloquence is, at times, almost unbearable. Always, though, she retains perfect control over her material, rendering her characters' shifting perspectives with truly extraordinary empathy and discernment. Highly recommended.Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton320 pagesThe most famous and important novel in South Africa's history, and an immediate worldwide bestseller when it was published in 1948, Alan Paton's impassioned novel about a black man's country under white man's law is a work of searing beauty. The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, "We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from poets, almost all thin. In Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country the statesman, the poet and the novelist meet in a unique harmony." Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.
Bach's Birthday Celebration
Knicks vs Pistons - St. Patty's Day
We were lucky enough to get box seats (for free!) to the
Knicks versus Pistons game at the
Garden. The Knicks were dressed in green in honor of St. Patrick's Day and the luck o' the Irish was with them as they came back to beat the Pistons 105-103.
The game started off slow, with the Pistons initially leading, but the Knicks closed the lead and didn't let go once they had it. Jamal Crawford hit a tie-breaking jumper with 2.2 seconds remaining and scored 15 of his team-high 18 points in the fourth quarter. Eddy Curry added 16 points, and both he and Malik Rose snatched 11 rebounds.
Frankie Goes to Hoboken III
Well, it's that time of year again! Our third annual
Frankie Goes to Hoboken scavenger hunt and games night is coming up on March 25th! It started back in 2004, when Kirkley, Rachel and I decided to celebrate Kirkley's and my birthdays with something fun and Hoboken-centric. It was time for folks to learn that Hoboken was more than Frank Sinatra's birthplace....
And so we present
(the evite has changed little over the years, although the photo has morphed a little and, this year, Kirkley is away in London and Yesh (another March baby) is in town):
THE HUNT IS ON!
Frankie did it his way. We do it ours. Help us to celebrate Yesh's, Bhawna's (and Kirkley's, in absentia :( ) birthdays with our 3rd annual games extravaganza. We'll kick off the event with a Hoboken Scavenger Hunt; teams will be competing for glory and a grand prize. After the hunt, we'll be returning to Rachel, Jeanne and Rachel's (our kind hosts!) apartment to tally the results and continue the celebration with food and games galore. Feel free to bring your own games, and anything you'd like to drink!
If you're joining us for the hunt, don't be fashionable, and don't be late. Please come to our apartment promptly at 4 pm.
If not, we'll be back at the apartment at 6 pm for Games-o-Rama, part ii. Frankie hopes to see you there. After all, it's HIS kind of town!
Rang De Basanti
Went to see
Rang De Basanti tonight with Yesh, and walked out a changed (wo)man! I honestly was expecting a feel-good, yuppie-centred Bollywood flick, but this movie was far more than that!
Every single person in the movie was a real (versus reel!) character, the type you can't quite get out of your head for ages. And the message of the movie was bang-on: stop complaining about all the many problems India has, and instead
do something about it. Corny, but these characters drove it home in a way that made us proud to be Indian...
Yesh wasn't quite as affected by the movie as I was, but then he likes horror movies :) I'd definitely recommend this for all desi kids under 30!
The Screwtape Letters
We went to see this thought-provoking play last night, starring
Max McLean as a fiendish Screwtape and Jenny Savage as Toadpipe.
When first published in 1942,
The Screwtape Letters brought immediate fame to a little known Oxford don whose field of study was medieval English literature. Over the past sixty years its wit and wisdom has proved to be one of C. S. Lewis most widely read and influential works.
Fellowship for the Performing Arts has secured the rights from the estate of C. S. Lewis to adapt this best selling classic into a theatrical production at Theatre 315, located at 315 W. 47th Street, between 8th and 9th Aves, just two blocks west of Times Square in New York City.
Set in an office in hell, Screwtape, the Undersecretary of the Department of Tempters, and his secretary, Toadpipe, train a new apprentice, Wormwood, on the finer points of undermining faith and preventing the formation of virtues. The play follows the amusing and sardonic twists and turns of this senior devil as he instructs his junior tempter on how to interfere in the life of a human. Lewis wrote his novel to give people theological and psychological insight into the reality of temptation.
For more details, visit
ScrewtapeOnStage.com. The show has been extended through April 10.
New Directors/New Films Festival
Now in its thirty-fifth year, the renowned
New Directors/New Films festival, presented jointly by
The Film Society of Lincoln Center and
The Museum of Modern Art, introduces New York audiences to the work of emerging or not-yet-established filmmakers from around the world. All of the films in New Directors/New Films are having either their New York, U.S., or North American premieres, and many of the screenings are introduced by the filmmakers themselves. I think it will be a really interesting opportunity to see some new and exciting films!
This year the Festival takes place at both the
Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center and The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1 at The Museum of Modern Art, where the festival opens on March 22. Four films have already been selected for the 2005 edition: Ashim Ahluwalia’s John and Jane (India, 2005), Rahmin Bahrani’s Man Push Cart (USA, 2005), Steven DePaul’s Close to Home (Israel, 2005), and Mohammed Rasoulof’s Iron Island (Iran, 2005). See
www.filmlinc.com for a complete listing of titles and running times. A complete schedule is also available in MoMA’s main and theater lobbies, and in the lobbies of the Walter Reade Theater and
Alice Tully Hall, at Lincoln Center.
New Directors/New Films was organized by a selection committee comprising Mary Lea Bandy, Chief Curator, Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, and Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film and Media, The Museum of Modern Art; and Marian Masone, Associate Director of Programming, Joanna Ney, Producer, Special Projects, and Richard Peña, Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center. Sponsored by National Geographic Traveler. The festival is made possible through the generosity of the Julien J. Studley Foundation and the Irene Diamond Fund. Additional support is provided by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.
NYC Marathon Registration
Registration for the New York City Marathon starts today at noon!
There's nothing quite like this inspiring race through the 5 boroughs of NYC...
