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Agenda

Moments of Silence: The Authentic Literary and Artistic Narratives of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)

March 14th
Opening Reception (8:30-10:30 PM)

Day 1: March 15th

Registration (9:00-9:30)

Conference Introduction (9:30-10:00)
Welcoming remarks:
Phillip Kennedy, Zachary Lockman, Mehdi Khorrami

Panel 1: Transnational Contexts: Inter-connected Histories, Geographies and Languages (10:00-12:00)

Chair: Mehdi Khorrami

1- Michael Beard (University of North Dakota)
"Not a Manifesto: Aggression in the language of its opposite"

2- Shouleh Vatanabadi (New York University)
¿Cultural Expressions of War: Narrative of Borders and beyond¿

3- Ahmed Ferhadi (New York University)
¿The Kurdish Dimension in the Iran-Iraq War¿

4- Ella Shohat (New York University)
¿Lost Homelands and the Imaginary of Return¿

Lunch (12:00-1:00)

Panel 2: Theorizing Cultural Expressions of War (1:00-2:30)

Chair: Zachary Lockman

1-Kamran Rastegar (Tufts University)
"The Imperative to Compare: Theorizing Trauma in Iranian War Narratives."

2- M. R. Ghanoonparvar (University of Texas at Austin)
¿War Veterans Turned Writers of War Narratives¿

3- Dina Khoury (George Washington University)
¿Writing the history of the present: Working with Memory and war in Iraq¿

Coffee break (2:30-3:00)

Readings: Excerpts from Literary Production of the Iran-Iraq War (3:00-4:30)

Chair: Nezar Andary

Ali Bader (Iraqi novelist)
Marjan Riahi (Iranian novelist and screenwriter)
Sinan Antoon (New York University-Iraqi scholar and poet)
Excerpts from contemporary Persian war fiction

Coffee break (4:30-5:00)

Film: Kilometer Zero by Hinêr Saleem (5:00-6:15)

Moderator: Sharon Parker

Day 2, March 16

Coffee (9:00-9:30)

Panel 3: Literary Narratives of War (9:30-11:00)

Chair: Farhad Kazemi

1- Mehdi Khorrami (New York University)
¿Silence, Resistance, and Narratives of War in Recent Persian Fiction¿

2- Ferial Ghazoul (American University in Cairo)
"Interrogating Silence: Irony as an Echo of the Unsaid"

3- Amir Moosavi (New York University)
¿War's Other Voices: Comparing Home Front War Narratives in Persian and Arabic
Fiction¿

Coffee break (11:00-11:30)

Panel 4: War through Visual Representations (11:30-1:00)

Chair: Alia Yunis

1- Marjan Riahi (Iranian writer and screenwriter)
¿Shadows of War: An Overview of Iranian War Films from 1980 to 1988¿

2- Ziad Turkey al-Jazzaa (Iraqi cinematographer, director and photographer)
¿The War, The Cinema, and People – Iraq 1980 to 1988¿

3- Peter Chelkowski (New York University)
¿All's Not Quiet on the Western Front: Graphic Arts in the Iranian War Effort¿

Lunch (1:00-2:00)

Panel 5: War and Accommodating Literary Genres (2:00-3:30)

Chair: Philip Kennedy

1- Ahmad Aminpour (University of Texas at Austin)
¿Representation of the Iran-Iraq War in Kurdish Fiction¿

2- Farzaneh Farahzad (University of Allameh Tabatabai, Tehran)
¿Translations in Conflict¿

3- Sinan Antoon (New York University)
¿The Sub-Version of a Genre: The Iraqi Prose-Poem and the War¿

Coffee break (3:30-4:00)

Film (excerpts) 4:00-5:30

Moderator: Sharon Parker

Day 3, March 17

Thematic Conversation (2:00-3:00)

Chair: Shouleh Vatanabadi
Ferial Ghazoul
Peter Chelkowski
Dina Khoury
Philip Kennedy

Closing remarks (Farhad Kazemi, Philip Kennedy, Shouleh Vatanabadi) 3:00-3:30

Public Lecture (7-8pm)

Michael Beard
¿Survival: In the Folds of War¿

Introduction: Philip Kennedy