SAIS Rethinking Iran

SAIS Rethinking Iran

The SAIS RETHINKING IRAN Initiative at Johns Hopkins University focuses on broadening the conversation on Iran in the public sphere by engaging researchers, scholars, activists, artists, and policymakers.

  1. 29.03.2023

    Book Forum: Backfire - How Sanctions Shape the World Against U.S. Interests

    Sanctions have become the go-to foreign policy tool for the United States. Coercive economic measures such as trade tariffs, financial penalties, and export controls affect large numbers of companies and states across the globe. Some of these penalties target nonstate actors, such as Colombian drug cartels and Islamist terror groups; others apply to entire countries, including North Korea, Iran, and Russia. U.S. policy makers see sanctions as a low-cost tactic, but in reality these measures often fail to achieve their intended goals—and their potent side effects can even harm American interests. Backfire explores the surprising ways sanctions affect multinational companies, governments, and ultimately millions of people around the world. Drawing on interviews with experts, policy makers, and people in sanctioned countries, Agathe Demarais examines the unintended consequences of the use of sanctions as a diplomatic weapon. The proliferation of sanctions spurs efforts to evade them, as states and firms seek ways to circumvent U.S. penalties. This is only part of the story. Sanctions also reshape relations between countries, pushing governments that are at odds with the U.S. closer to each other—or, increasingly, to Russia and China. Full of counterintuitive insights spanning a wide range of topics, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Iran’s COVID response and China’s cryptocurrency ambitions, Backfire reveals how sanctions are transforming geopolitics and the global economy—as well as diminishing U.S. influence. This insider’s account is an eye-opening, accessible, and timely book that sheds light on the future of sanctions in an increasingly multipolar world. AGATHE DEMARAIS is the global forecasting director of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). She was previously a senior policy adviser for the French Treasury in Russia and Lebanon, working directly on sanctions and other economic and financial issues. For more information on SAIS Rethinking Iran and future events, please visit our website: https://www.rethinkingiran.com/events

    59 Min.
  2. 01.03.2023

    Book Forum: This Flame Within - Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States

    In This Flame Within MANIJEH MORADIAN recounts the experiences of Iranian foreign students who joined a global movement against US imperialism during the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on archival evidence and in-depth interviews with members of the Iranian Students Association, Moradian traces what she calls “revolutionary affects”—the embodied force of affect generated by experiences of repression and resistance—from encounters with empire and dictatorship in Iran to joint organizing with other student activists in the United States. Moradian theorizes “affects of solidarity” that facilitated Iranian student participation in a wide range of antiracist and anticolonial movements and analyzes gendered manifestations of revolutionary affects within the emergence of Third World feminism. Arguing for a transnational feminist interpretation of the Iranian Student Association’s legacy, Moradian demonstrates how the recognition of multiple sources of oppression in the West and in Iran can reorient Iranian diasporic politics today.   MANIJEH MORADIAN received her PhD in American Studies from NYU and her MFA in creative nonfiction from Hunter College, City University of New York. She is the former co-director of the Association of Iranian American Writers. Her book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States, is forthcoming from Duke University Press in Fall 2022. Her essays and articles have appeared in Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties, Scholar & Feminist Online, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Comparative Studies of South Asian, Africa, and the Middle East, Social Text online,  jadaliyya.com, tehranbureau.com, Bi Taarof, and Callaloo. She is a member of Jadaliyya’s Iran Page editorial board and a founding member of Raha Iranian Feminist Collective.   For more information on SAIS Rethinking Iran and future events, please visit our website: https://www.rethinkingiran.com/events

    1 Std. 3 Min.

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The SAIS RETHINKING IRAN Initiative at Johns Hopkins University focuses on broadening the conversation on Iran in the public sphere by engaging researchers, scholars, activists, artists, and policymakers.