As the film’s title suggests, director Asghar Farhadi’s film A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin), is about the separation of a married couple, but the story is actually centered on the complex interpersonal relationships between an upper class secular liberal couple and that of an impoverished religiously devoted Muslim couple. The complexities are deep, and Farhadi tries to not take the side of one family over the other in the film.
The goal of Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran is to address a gap in scholarship and understanding of the lives of women during the Qajar era (1796 – 1925) in Iran by developing a comprehensive digital resource that preserves, links, and renders accessible primary-source materials related to the social and cultural history of women’s worlds in Qajar Iran. Through the use of technology it brings together little known archives scattered across the world.
On Sept 26th 2003, Palestinian Intellectual Edward Said passed away after a long battle with leukemia. We remember Professor Said by featuring an interview he did about his seminal work, Orientalism.
Later in the program, we speak with Golden Thread Productions’ Founding Artistic Director Torange Yeghiazarian and International artist Hafiz Karmali about the play, NIGHT OVER ERZINGA.
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This week’s Voices of the Middle East and North Africa, we explore the escalation in violence in Yemen’s Capital Sanaa persists as military forces loyal to president Ali Abdullah Saleh have continued their assaults on protestors for the past four days. We’ll speak with Atiaf al Wazir, a Yemeni-American blogger and activist based in the nation’s capital Sana.
We’ll also speak with University of Richmond political scientist Sheila Carapico about how external powers are attempting to shape Yemen’s future.
Later in the program, we’ll feature a new graphic novel about an Iranian family’s search for their 19-year-old son after he disappears during a protest in the aftermath of the rigged 2009 presidential election in Iran. We’ll speak with Amir, who’s the author of the graphic novel Zahra’s Paradise.
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This week on Voices of The Middle East and North Africa we will be looking at Turkey’s expanding role in the Middle East and North Africa. We will be speaking with Dr. Karem Oktem, a research fellow at the European Studies Center of Saint Anthony’s College about Turkey’s foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa. Later on in the program, VOMENA producer Shuka Kalantari will speak with Iranian-American author, Firoozeh Kashani of Penn State University about her debut novel ‘Martyrdom Street.’
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The revolutionary spirit endures in Egypt as thousand of protesters stay camped out at Tahrir square for the second week in a row. In response to nationwide protests and the slow pace of reform Egypt’s Prime Minister, Essam Sharaf has fired several of his top ministers.
We continue our conversation with leading Egyptian activist and journalist Hossam El Hamalawy about the prospects for the revolution to flourish and bring about real change.
And in the summer of 1988, over 5000 political prisoners in Iran were executed and dumped into shallow graves in Khavaran cemetery on the outskirts of the capital, Tehran in what was a pre planned and systematic campaign. We will be speaking with Professor Shahla Talebi of Arizona State University and a former political prisoner about her memoir, ‘Ghosts of Revolution: Rekindled Memories of Imprisonment in Iran.’
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This week on Voices of the Middle East and North Africa, we take an in-depth look at Turkey’s expanding role in the Middle East and North Africa. We will be speaking with Dr. Karem Oktem; a research fellow at the European Studies Center of Saint Anthony’s College; about Turkey’s assertive foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa. Later on in the program VOMENA producer Shuka Kalantari will speak with Iranian American author Firoozeh Kashani of Penn State University about her debut novel “Martydom Street.”
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This week on Voices of The Middle East and North Africa, we speak with Libyan Professor Ahmida from the University of New England to update us on the current situation in Libya. We will also speak with KPFA’s music programmer Kutay Kugay about the July 8th fundraiser for Bay Area based musical pioneer Cheb i Sabbah who has been diagnosed with cancer. We also discuss the state of political prisoners in Iran and talk with Executive Director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran Hadi Ghaemi.
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This week on Voices of the Middle East and North Africa we revisit Tunisia and look at the Tunisian revolution and we speak with Tunisian born geography Professor Habib Ayeb at the American University in Cairo. Later in the show Iranian-American comedian Zahra Noorbakhsh talks to us about her one woman show, ‘All Atheists are [...]
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We look at the protest movement in Iranian on the two year anniversary of the Green Movement protests against the rigged Presidential Elections in Iran. We speak with Professor Mansour Farhang of Bennington College about where the pro-democracy is today.
Later in the program we speak with Egyptian-American comedian Ahmed Ahmed about his documentary film titled, Just Like Us.
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