September 11, 2004
08:00 AM » 2004 MIDDLE EAST CONFERENCE
THE 2004 MIDDLE EAST & CENTRAL ASIA POLITICS, ECONOMICS, AND SOCIETY CONFERENCE: Transitions and Inequality in the 21st Century
September 9th to 11th, 2004
The University of Utah
Salt Lake City, USA
*** Deadline for proposals: May 15, 2004 ***
For more information plesae click here
The second annual multidisciplinary conference on the Middle East and Central Asia will be held on the picturesque campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The objective of the conference is to bring together academics, analysts, and policy makers with interests in the Middle East and Central Asia who wish to network and share research endeavors.
The three-day conference will include at least two prominent keynote speakers: Dr.Michael Collins Dunn,, editor of the Middle East Journal of the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC.; and Prof. Shirin Akiner, lecturer in Central Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. There will be an estimated 44 conference sessions, and a special plenary discussion panel on 'The Post-9-11 World'. Other attractions include two complementary meals, an evening of Middle Eastern and Central Asian dance and music performances, and screening of films and documentaries.
06:00 PM » Journey from the Land of No
Journey from the Land of No by Roya Hakakian
Saturday, September 11th at 6:00 PM Los Angeles, California
Book Tour
Place:
Barnes & Noble BOOKSELLERS
10850 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064
310.475.4144
Introduction
Roya Hakakian was twelve years old in 1979 when the revolution swept through Tehran. The daughter of an esteemed poet and teacher, Roya grew up in household that hummed with intellectual life. Her older brother, Albert, drew cartoons for a satirical magazine that would be banned under the new regime. Another brother, Javid, shared the magic of poetry, and secretly read to her from a celebrated children’s book, The Little Black Fish, an allegory about a stubborn young fish that defies its elders by swimming out to sea. Roya eventually learns that the book’s author was killed by SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police, and his message about the price of freedom and independence become a guiding force in her life. Her memoir, Journey From the Land of No, is a lyrical and beautifully written coming-of-age story about one young, deeply intelligent and perceptive girl’s attempt to find an authentic voice of her own at a time of cultural closing and repression.
Hakakian also tells the vivid story of what it was like to grow up Jewish in Iran on the brink of the revolution. She writes about discovering a swastika painted on the wall of her peaceful alley, and standing by as her classmates were escorted from school by Islamic Morality Guards, accused of reading blasphemous books, never to return to class. It was only later that Roya learned from her Persian Cosmopolitan teacher – the school administrator’s spy – that the reason she was spared was because the teacher admired her writing.
Here, twenty years after finally emigrating from Iran with her parents, Hakakian recounts some of the best known “urban legends” of the Iranian culture and revolution, but she does so in a domestic setting, in the powerful and distinctive voice of a young girl observing the life around her the way a poet or an artist would. One of her favorite activities as a teenager was the weekly hike that members of the Jewish Iranian Students Organization made at sunrise up the majestic, snowcapped Alborz mountains to laugh, enjoy each other’s company, and declaim poetry. Until one Friday when the group is stopped by young guards armed with Kalashnikov’s who had closed the mountain citing the “needs of the revolution,” and proceeded to detain the entire group and strip-search the women.
Throughout the book we witness fascinating courtship rituals as they unfold in Roya’s home, featuring eccentric uncles, aunts, brothers and friends. We experience in the most poignant, and at times painful ways, what life was like for women after the country fell into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who had declared an insidious war against them, but always we see it through the eyes of a strong, youthful optimist who somehow came up in the world believing that she was different and knowing that she was special.
Journey from the Land of No is a wonderfully evocative story that reveals an Iran that most readers have not encountered, and marks the debut of a stunning new talent
08:00 PM » Death of Yazdgerd
Death of Yazdgerd
Written by: Bahram Beyzaie
Directed by: Evren Odcikin
Featuring: Ali Dadgar, D. Anthony Harper, Richard Louis James, Nicholas A. Olivero, Sara Razavi and Bella Warda
When: September 11, 2004 8:00 PM
Where:ASHBY STAGE THEATER (former Transparent Theater)
1901 Ashby Avenue Berkeley, CA MAP
Corner of Martin Luther King Way & Ashby (Ashby BART)
Wheelchair Accessible
Admission: $15
For reservation or more info call: 510.595.4607 or visit: www.darvag.org
Darvag presents the Iranian master playwright Bahram Beyzaie's Death of Yazdgerd, a poetic and political work exploring the
cruel and tragic dynamics of a class-based society. The text is translated by Manuchehr Anvar, and will be directed by Evren
Odcikin: War is raging. King Yazdgerd's body is discovered in a run-down mill in the Iranian desert. Charged with murder, the
miller, his wife and his sickly daughter must tell their story to the commanders to escape torture and death. Who killed the
King? Was Yazdgerd indeed the revered God-King, or a puny, immoral man caught in the destructive whirlwind of his times? Echoes
of Greek tragedy haunt this drama of a family exposing its dark secrets in a time of war and poverty, weaving a web of mystery
tied to the fate of a nation under attack facing an unknown future