Lecture – 'Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer and Poetry in Iran' (Virtual)

When: March 05, 2021 3:00pm
Niloofar Haeri

This event is part of the Spring 2021 Middle Eastern and North African Studies Colloquium Series.

Dr. Niloofar Haeri, professor of anthropology and program chair of Islamic Studies at Johns Hopkins University,  will present her recently published book, "Say What Your Longing Heart Desires." Her book begins with the question of how we can avoid looking at revolutions as either failures or successes. The 1979 revolution in Iran resulted in a mass involvement with theological questions – most notably, what kind of Islam is the true one? The Islamic Republic sought to define and impose a certain version of Islam on Iranians. Hence, it was inevitable that people would question the authority of this particular approach by the state and offer their own alternatives. Dr. Haeri will discuss her investigation of the usage of classical poetry, spirituality of namaz, the temporality of performing a ritual and the role of language in constructing a relationship with God.

Dr. Haeri's work has focused on the question: What difference does language make? Through her work, she seeks to understand how the circle that is language changing society (community, politics, religion, rituals) changing language actually works. After receiving her B.A. and Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Haeri released her first book addressing the gendered agents of language change in Cairo. Additional fieldwork in Cairo has addressed linguistic changes to Classical Arabic and its role as a national language in Egypt and other Arab countries. Between 2008 and 2016, Dr. Haeri carried out fieldwork in Tehran, Iran with a group of middle class, educated women born in the 1940s. This work forms the base of her recent book, "Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer and Poetry in Iran."

This event will be on Zoom. Please access the registration page by using the link below.


Audience: All

Where

Campus: Virtual

Address

United States
US

Contact info & links

Attachments

Contacts

Megan Young Center for Middle Eastern Studies

Requests for disability-related accommodations should be directed to the event's primary contact: Megan Young