Shahrzad Mojab, Professor at the Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE/UT). Her areas of research and teaching are: educational policy studies; gender, state, diaspora and transnationality; women, war, militarization and violence; women, war and learning; and feminism, anti-racism, colonialism and imperialism; and cultural relativism as an ideological tool. Her publications include, among others, articles and book chapters on 'Islamic Feminism'; feminism and nationalism; adult education and the construction of civil society; women's NGOs, transnationalism, and diaspora; feminism, fundamentalism and imperialism. She is the editor of Women of A Non States Nation: The Kurds, co-editor of Of Property and Propriety: The Role of Gender and Class in Imperialism and Nationalism, and Violence in the Name of Honour: Theoretical and Political Challenges. She is currently conducting research on war, diaspora, and learning; women political prisoners in the Middle East; war and transnational women's organizations, and civic education curriculum as experienced by immigrant youth from war zones.
Sypnosis: Trends in Prison Studies and Prison Literature of Iran
Political prisoners, their repression and resistance, are an integral feature of modern Iranian history. The creation of the category of political prisoners and the development of administration of political prisons dates back to Reza Shah's rule (1925-1941), although repression of the political opposition predates the Pahlavi monarchy (1925-79) and was widely practiced under the Qajars (1781-1925). In the post-1953 coup d'etat years, surveillance and incarceration were modernized in the Cold War context of US-Iranian relations.
The political culture of modern Iran was shaped by the prominence of political prisoners. Although repression did not allow prisoners to speak freely, literature in Persian and other languages of Iran, glorified their resistance. The fall of the Pahlavi monarchy led to the extension rather than extinction of the regime of political prisons. The prison system was expanded and Islamized, and new forms of gendered torture and disciplining were devised. Compared with the monarchical period, women's presence has been prominent.
The paper argues that if political prisoners are prominent in Iran's political culture, academic literature generally ignores them. The vast memoir literature produced by prisoners, especially women, and published in diaspora in recent years has not attracted research attention. This paper will offer a diverse range of debate on the prison politics of the Islamic state, prisoner resistance, and legal issues and initiatives for bringing to end the regime of political prisons by reviewing the current body of literature of prison by prisoners and other scholars and prison memoirs.
The video is in English
Return | Back to the program | Continue
Lousnak • Elahe Machouf • Red Names • Shirin • Ms.sun • Looli • Hossein Afsahi • Saeed Yousef • Danielle Ouanes
Hassan Pooya • Soudabeh Ardavan • Setareh Abbasi • Shohreh Kia • Mahbubeh • Payam Akhavan • Shahrzad Mojab
Béatrice Vaugrante • Masoud Raouf • Mostafa Henaway • Stephan Kazemi • Saiid Ismati • Zari Daknema • Antigone
Marie Boti • Felicitas Treue • Bahram Ghadimi • Shokoufe Sakhi • Iraj Mesdaghi • Reza Gahfari • Ezat Mossallanejed