Stanford Iranian Studies Program

Stanford Iranian Studies Program
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The Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies fosters the interdisciplinary study of Iran as a civilization. Each academic year, the Program offers undergraduate courses related to Iran in such disciplines as language, literature, economics, and political science. It provides a wealth of events for scholars, students and the general public, which include conferences, symposia, forums, lectures and performances. Listen to one of our podcasts or check out our youtube channel to discover Iran!

  1. 2d ago

    The Psychology of Revolution with Fathali Moghaddam

    This lecture is based on Dr. Fathali M. Moghaddam’s new book "Psychology of Revolution" (Cambridge University Press, 2024) devoted to understanding the psychology of revolution—the first since Gustav Le Bon’s now classic book of 1894. Fathali Moghaddam, a psychologist who experienced revolution in Iran, his own country of birth, presents a psychological analysis and a new model of revolution based on both objective research and personal experience. The first part of the lecture critically examines revolutionary movements and the process of regime change, with reference to psychological theories of collective mobilization. In the second part, and unique to this new book on the psychology of revolution, the focus moves to what happens after regime change. It is argued that only by understanding what happens after regime change, a neglected topic, that the enigma of revolution can be solved. The concept of political plasticity is used to explain how and in what ways change does and does not take place after regime change, why so many revolutions against dictatorships lead to new dictatorships, and why in the 21st century the momentum of democracy is being challenged by authoritarian movements in many parts of the world. Fathali M. Moghaddam is Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University. Prior to joining Georgetown, he worked for the United Nations and for McGill University. His research and publications are mostly on collective mobilization, radicalization, human rights and duties, political plasticity, and intergroup conflict. He has also published on psychology and Shakespeare. Learn more about Dr. Moghaddam's new book: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/psychology-of-revolution/C1E4C74F0E7EED9B2F71A1AE134EE9F8#fndtn-metrics

    The Psychology of Revolution with Fathali Moghaddam

  2. Jul 31

    Abbas Milani: Shahrnush Parsipur, In Memoriam

    Shahrnush Parsipur (1946-2026) was an acclaimed and award-winning author, and the recipient of the ninth Bita Prize in Persian Arts from Stanford University. Dr. Mandana Zandian prepared this video for the memorial event hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies on July 31, 2026 (https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/.... Abbas Milani is the director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University; and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues.

    Abbas Milani: Shahrnush Parsipur, In Memoriam

  3. Jul 31

    Maryam Zandi: Shahrnush Parsipur, In Memoriam

    Shahrnush Parsipur (1946-2026) was an acclaimed and award-winning author, and the recipient of the ninth Bita Prize in Persian Arts from Stanford University. Maryam Zandi prepared this video for the memorial event hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies on July 31, 2026 (https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/.... Maryam Zandi was born in 1947 in Gorgan, Iran. She is a graduate of Tehran University's School of Law and Political Science. Beginning her photography career in 1970, she was awarded with the first prize of the ministry of art and culture’s national photography competition. In 1972 she joined Iranian national TV-Radio as a photographer and later by initial publications of “Tamasha” magazine, she became Iranian Television and Tamasha magazine’s public relations photographer till 1983. Over 26 years she has created a unique extensive photography archive of famous and influential contemporary Iranian elites in the fields of literature, visual arts, cinema, theater, architecture, music and politics known as “Chehreh-ha”: Portraits.

    Maryam Zandi: Shahrnush Parsipur, In Memoriam

  4. Jul 31

    Mojdeh Shamsaie: Shahrnush Parsipur, In Memoriam

    Shahrnush Parsipur (1946-2026) was an acclaimed and award-winning author, and the recipient of the ninth Bita Prize in Persian Arts from Stanford University. Dr. Mandana Zandian prepared this video for the memorial event hosted by Stanford Iranian Studies on July 31, 2026 (https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/.... Mojdeh Shamsaie is an Iranian actress, theater practitioner, and multidisciplinary artist. A Crystal Simorgh Award winner, she has long collaborated with Bahram Beyzaie and has co-led acting workshops at Stanford University since 2014.

    Mojdeh Shamsaie: Shahrnush Parsipur, In Memoriam

  5. May 14

    The Iranian Oil Crisis and Mossadegh in the Cold War, 1951-1953 with Jamil Hasanli

    In the early 1950s, there were two hot spots of the Cold War: Korea and Iran. Iranian oil had become a firebomb of the Cold War in the Middle East. It was the first oil crisis of the Cold War. The central figure of the dramatic events of 1951-1953 in Iran was Mohammad Mossadegh. He was the most popular national leader of the 20th century. The day before the appointment of Dr. Mossadegh as Prime Minister, the Majlis unanimously supported the law on the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. However, newly declassified archival documents released after the collapse of the Soviet Union, open documents of CIA, British special services and Turkish diplomatic archives have further enriched our understanding of the first oil crisis of the Cold War in Iran. This talk is based on Dr. Hasanli's forthcoming book The Iranian Oil Crisis and Mossadegh in the Cold War, 1949-1953 (Routledge, 2026). Dr. Jamil Hasanli is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (SAS) of the University of London. He was advisor to the president of Azerbaijan in 1993 and served two terms as a Member of Parliament of Azerbaijan in 2000-2010. In 2013, he was a candidate for the presidential election, representing the united opposition. Professor Hasanli was a History and Public Policy Scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center in 2011, and 2020. He received the 2015 Ion Ratiu Democracy Award of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 2016-2017 he was scholar at the Cold War Center at East China Normal University in Shanghai. Dr. Hasanli is the author of several books published in Azerbaijan, Russia, USA, UK, Turkey, Iran, Hong Kong (China) and other countries. Fouг of his monographs were published in the Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series. *Correction note from the speaker: At the 56:49 mark it is "11 tons of gold," not "11 thousand tons."

    The Iranian Oil Crisis and Mossadegh in the Cold War, 1951-1953 with Jamil Hasanli

  6. May 1

    Iran in Transition: Iran’s Security Forces and the Future of Political Order with Saeid Golkar

    This lecture examines the role of Iran’s security forces in shaping the country’s political future amid deep uncertainty. Focusing on the IRGC, the Basij, and the broader coercive apparatus, it analyzes these institutions not only as instruments of repression but also as central political actors. Taking seriously the possibility that Iran may face a different political order by the time of this presentation, the lecture asks how security institutions may shape the outcome of a crisis, whether through regime survival, internal fragmentation, managed transition, or the consolidation of a new regime. Saeid Golkar is the UC Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He specializes in the politics of authoritarian regimes, with a particular focus on Iran and the broader Middle East. He earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Tehran and previously held research and teaching positions at Stanford University and Northwestern University. Golkar is the author of Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Post-Revolutionary Iran (Columbia University Press, 2015), which received the Washington Institute’s Silver Medal Prize. His forthcoming book, Dictators and the Higher Education Dilemma, will be published by Rutgers University Press in spring 2026.

    Iran in Transition: Iran’s Security Forces and the Future of Political Order with Saeid Golkar

  7. Apr 22

    The Myth of Maximum Pressure on Iran with Matin Mirramezani and Sam Samani

    This is a recording of a webinar held by the Stanford Iranian Studies Program on April 15, 2026. This discussion evaluates the conventional wisdom surrounding U.S. sanctions on Iran. The paper in discussion from the Stanford Iran 2040 Project is available: https://iranian-studies.stanford.edu/publications/irans-exports-under-sanctions-myth-maximum-pressure Data from this paper shows that Iran's oil exports have not only recovered from their lowest points under strict sanctions, but now surpass the peak levels seen during the JCPOA. The authors explore the primary causes behind this rebound. The discussion also dissects the intricate barter system that allows Iran to trade oil for goods, technology, and infrastructure projects, bypassing the international financial system. They analyze how this mechanism funnels resources to entities like the IRGC, fueling both domestic suppression and foreign aggression. Finally, they assess the future of this paradigm and its implications for Iran. Matin Mirramezani manages the Stanford Iran 2040 Project and has been a contributor to the project since 2018. He studied economics at Stanford and co-founded the Generation Lab, a youth-focused data intelligence company. He is passionate about innovative research methods and policies that promote development. He is also the co-author of The Struggle for Development in Iran (SUP, 2022). Sam Samani is a senior at Stanford University studying Political Science with a minor in Iranian Studies. His research focuses on Iranian elite politics, institutional continuity, and U.S. policy toward Iran, with particular attention to sanctions, succession dynamics, and state capacity. He has conducted research with the Hoover Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and has professional experience at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Part of the Stanford Iran 2040 Project: goto.stanford.edu/iran2040

    The Myth of Maximum Pressure on Iran with Matin Mirramezani and Sam Samani

  8. Apr 22

    Tahira Qurrat al-'Ayn's Sisters of the Pen: Some Early Babi Women Poets with Dominic Brookshaw

    Fatima Baraghani, who is better known to history by her Shaykhi epithet, Qurrat al-‘Ayn, and her Babi penname, Tahira, was born in Qazvin in 1814 and executed in Tehran in 1852. A prominent follower first of Sayyid Kazim Rashti (d. 1843) and then the Bab (Sayyid ‘Ali-Muhammad Shirazi; executed 1850), Tahira played a significant role in the development and spread of both Shaykhism and Babism – two of the most radical movements to emerge out of Twelver Shi‘ism in Qajar Iran. As well as a charismatic orator and a learned theologian, Tahira was also an accomplished poet who used her original compositions and her reworkings of well-known poems by others to captivate her interlocutors and convince them of the veracity of her beliefs. In this lecture, Dr. Brookshaw will present poems by three of Tahira’s female contemporaries: a Shaykhi woman from Khurasan and two Qajar initiates of the Ni‘matullahi Sufi order. These women variously associated closely with Tahira in Karbala, Hamadan, and Tehran. Guided by their mentor, they joined the Babi movement. He argues that it is only through studying poets such as these that we can gain insight into the nature of the female-only social circles Tahira moved within that are hinted at in the vaguest terms in the extant chronicles and eyewitness accounts of the period. Dominic Parviz Brookshaw is Professor of Persian Literature and Iranian Culture at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow in Persian at Wadham College, Oxford. From 2011 - 2013, he was Assistant Professor of Persian and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He has published widely on premodern and modern Persian literature, and his articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals including Iranian Studies, Middle Eastern Literatures, and IRAN: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. His most recent book, Hafiz and His Contemporaries: Poetry, Performance, and Patronage in Fourteenth-century Iran (Bloomsbury, 2019), won the Saidi-Sirjani Book Award in 2020. He serves currently as the President of the Association for Iranian Studies. Part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts

    Tahira Qurrat al-'Ayn's Sisters of the Pen: Some Early Babi Women Poets with Dominic Brookshaw
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About

The Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies fosters the interdisciplinary study of Iran as a civilization. Each academic year, the Program offers undergraduate courses related to Iran in such disciplines as language, literature, economics, and political science. It provides a wealth of events for scholars, students and the general public, which include conferences, symposia, forums, lectures and performances. Listen to one of our podcasts or check out our youtube channel to discover Iran!

Information

  • Creator
    Stanford Iranian Studies Program
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    201
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    Stanford Iranian Studies Program