UNC-Chapel Hill Persian Studies Program
Revisiting Discourses of Love, Sex, and Desire in Modern Iran and Diaspora:
A Symposium in a Series of Panels

Horner Jarrahi Keynote Presentation

"The Growing Popularity of Non-Standard Marriages and Unions in Iran and South West Asia/North Africa (SWANA)"
 with Dr. Janet Afary

From their mundane to their sublime forms, love and desire have played a central role in various discourses in modern Iran. From romantic epics to ghazals, and from arranged marriages to white marriages, and from companionate love to contemporary cohabitations, desire is undoubtedly one of the most important theoretical topics for scholars. This symposium brings together a range of scholars from different disciplines focusing on modern Iran to analyze the wide variety of ways in which love and desire have been represented, imagined, and discursively constructed.

Janet Afary is Mellichamp Chair in Global Religion and Modernity, professor of religious studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. Co-author Roger Friedland is professor emeritus, religious studies and sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara. Introductions by Claudia Yaghoobi.

Register in advance: go.unc.edu/Iran

For more information, contact Claudia Yaghoobi, Roshan Institute Associate Professor in Persian Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, yaghoobi@email.unc.edu.

This keynote presentation is made possible thanks to the Horner Jarrahi Persian Studies Speaker Series Endowment at the University Libraries at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The webinar is part of the series “Revisiting Discourses of Love, Sex, and Desire in Modern Iran and Diaspora: A Symposium in a Series of Panels.”