ASPS Newsletter

We apologize to members for an even later-than-usual issue of the Newsletter; we were awaiting final details of the arrangements for the AssociationÕs First Biennial Convention (see below).

ASPS thanks the Dean of the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago for allocating storage space for our Web site on the Division's server. We are also grateful to the University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (Director, John Woods) for its continuing support with printing and postage costs of the Newsletter.

Members are urged to forward announcements and items of professional interest to the Editor:

John R. Perry
Editor, ASPS Newsletter
The University of Chicago
Center for Middle Eastern Studies
5828 S. University Avenue
Chicago IL 60637, USA
Fax: 773 702-2587
e-mail: j-perry@uchicago.edu

The next issue of the Newsletter is scheduled, ever optimistically, for late September 2002; please sub-mit materials by 23 September!

September 11 caused an interruption in our Program, but visits to the United States have been resumed this year. Two Travel Fellowships granted prior to that date were taken up by Dr. Azarakhsh Mokri and Dr. Javad Alaghbandrad, who visited the Yale Medical School and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies in February 2002 to discuss the problems of drug addition and AIDS in Iran.

Our project for institutional development continued with projects for opening offices in Poland and Armenia, with Georgia and Azerbaijan to follow. During a trip to Cracow, Poland, in July 2001, the President had discussed with Professor Anna Krasnowolska the idea of integrating academic centers in Russia and Eastern Europe more fully into our activities. The same idea and its extension to the Caucasus were discussed in the meeting of the Board of Directors on December 21, 2001. The Board decided to move the regional Council for Europe to Cracow, and Professor Anna Krasnowolska subsequently agreed to serve as its Director, with the understanding that its activities would be expanded to the Ukraine and the Caucasus. With the approval of the Vice-Rector, its office was located in the Institute of Oriental Philology of Jagiellonian University. Since the opening of our office in Yerevan, it has been renamed the Council for Eurasia.

As a first step toward the integration of Caucasian scholars into the ASPS, the President traveled to Armenia in early March 2002. Following a meeting of interested scholars at the Yerevan State University and very fruitful discussions with Professor Garnik Asatrian, Director of the Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies, and Professor Gurgen Malikian, Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Yerevan State University, an agreement was reached to open an ASPS office in Yerevan.

With the end of civil war and a change of regime in Afghanistan, we can finally extend our activities to that very Persianate society. Dr. Amin Tarzi of the Monterey Institute for International Studies (amin.tarzi@miis.edu) has agreed to chair an ad hoc committee for opening an office in Kabul, and Dr. Jo-Ann Gross (gross@tcnj.edu) has agreed to serve on it. There have been delays in the publication of Studies on Persianate Societies while library subscription orders begin to arrive. The first volume for 2000/1381, however, is just about ready to be sent to the publisher and should appear before too long.

Election of New Board Members

Elections for the Board of Directors were held last fall. Professors Devin DeWeese of the University of Indiana, Bloomington, Shahla Haeri of Boston University and Rudi Matthee of the University of Delaware were elected for three years (2002-2004). Congratulations! And many thanks to Dr. Anne Betteridge and Ms Kaila Bussert of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Arizona, for counting the vote and announcing the results on December 10, 2001.

Special Events

The Association is the co-sponsor, with the Society for Iranian Studies, of the Fourth Biennial Conference on Iranian Studies in Bethesda, Maryland, May 24-26, 2002. We are grateful to Dr. Alice Hunsberger for representing the ASPS on the Programs Committee and helping organize the many sessions in which ASPS members will participate as panelists, organizers or chairs.

On Saturday, May 25, 18:30 – 20:30, there will be a special Reception to honor the ASPS Travel Fellows who are taking part in the Biennial Conference. All ASPS members are cordially invited to attend, at the Jamshid photo exhibition in the Fellini Restaurant of the Bethesda Hyatt Regency: this will feature refreshments from Paradise, a brief slide show by Jamshid Bayrami and a film on the Iranian heritage of Georgia (Mirâs-e Irâni-e Gorjestân) by Touraj Atabaki. Please don’t miss it!

There will also be a meeting of the Editorial Board of Studies on Persianate Societies on Saturday May 25, 12:30-2:00, and a breakfast meeting of the ASPS Board of Directors on Sunday, May 26, 7:30-9:00. Any member wishing to raise an issue pertaining to either meeting should contact Said Arjomand or Jo-Ann Gross before or during the Biennial Conference. Suggestions for future panels and programs may be sent at any time to either of the following:

Dr. Alice Hunsberger alicehunsberger@hotmail.com

Dr. Rudi Matthee matthee@juno.com

As an affiliate member of the International Sociological Association, ASPS has organized two sessions at the XV World Congress of Sociology in Brisbane, Australia, July 7-13, 2002:

Panel I: The Persianate World and Social Change
Organizer and Chair: Said Amir Arjomand, State University of New York at Stony Brook

Ali Akbar Mahdi, Ohio Wesleyan University “Youth in the Middle East, with special focus on Iran”

Shariyar Safarov, Uzbekistan State University, Samarkand “Language Policy of New Post-Soviet Governments and the Persian-speaking Language Situation”

Hossein Adibi, Queensland University of Technology “Historical Contributions of Afghan Cameleers in Outback Australia”

Masoud Kamali, University of Uppsala “Multiple Modernities, Civil Societies, and Islam: The Iranian PathThrough Modernization”

Discussant: Poopak Taati, Montgomery College, Maryland

Panel II: Issues in Democratization in Contemporary Iran

Organizer and Chair: Poopak Taati, Montgomery College, Maryland

Elaheh Koolaee, Tehran University and Iranian Majles “Reform and Democratization: The View from Inside the Majles (Iranian Parliament)”

Gholam-Abbas Tavassoli, Tehran University “Rational versus Emotional Thinking in the Process of Democratization of Iran”

Jaleh Shaditalab, Tehran University “Women’s Issues in Iran: A Domain for Encounter”

Poopak Taati, Montgomery College “NGOs and the Process of Democratization in Iran”

Discussant: Ali Akbar Mahdi, Ohio Wesleyan University

In addition, Said Arjomand will present something of a rationale for Persianate studies in a paper titled “The Persianate World in the Global Frame,” for the Thematic Group 06: Sociology of Local-Global Relations. He has also organized an ad hoc session on “Rethinking Civilizational Analysis” to mark the appearance of a special issue, on this theme, of the ISA journal International Sociology, of which he is Editor.

New ASPS Offices in Poland and Armenia:
As announced above, we are pleased to report the opening of the ASPS Offices in Poland and Armenia:
Institute of Oriental Philology (Instytut Filologii Orientalnej)
Jagiellonian University
al. Mickiewicza 9/11
31-120 Krakow
Poland
tel.: (48-12) 633 63 77, ext. 23 26 and 413 67 81
fax: (48-12) 422 67 93 (for IFO)
E-mail: KRASNOWO@Vela.filg.uj.edu.pl
(Director: Professor Anna Krasnowolska)

Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies
Khorenatsi str. 26
375010 Yerevan
Republic of Armenia
Tel/Fax: (3741) 56-72-07, (3741) 55-61-91
E-mail: caucas@infocom.am
(Director: Professor Garnik Asatrian)

The First ASPS Biennial Convention Rescheduled
We have now received official approval from the Government of Tajikistan, and have rescheduled the convention for September 15-17, 2002, in Dushanbe. The old convention’s Program Committee, chaired by Jo-Ann Gross and including Abbas Amanat, Said Amir Arjomand, Manouchehr Kasheff and Rudi Matthee, is back at work and has asked the individuals whose papers had been accepted for the convention, which was to be held in Shiraz last October, if they wish to present them at the rescheduled convention this fall. We invite abstracts from anyone wishing to participate. (See Call For Papers). Meanwhile, the Tajik Organizing Committee has been formed, consisting of Dr. Bahriddin Aliev, Secretary-Treasurer of the ASPS, Tajikistan (aliev_bt@hotmail.com), Dr. Dodikhudo Saimiddinov, Director of the Institute of Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan; Academician Ylmas Mirsaidov, President of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan; Dr. Karomatullo Olimov, Head of the National Commission of UNESCO (Tajikistan), Minister of culture of Tajikistan; and Dr. Lola Nazarshoevna Dodkhudoeva, Secretary of the National Commission of UNESCO (Tajikistan). This distinguished Committee in Dushanbe is planning the organization of the convention with the support of the National Commission of UNESCO and the Open Society Institute, Tajikistan.

Membership:
We used a combination of lists for our recruitment drive for 2002, and I am very pleased to report that the 167th member (excluding those of the Regional Councils) has been enrolled at the time of this writing.

Travel Fellowship Program

The Program will be continued for yet another year with the generous support of the Open Society Institute:
The Association for the Study of Persianate Societies is pleased to announce the continuation of our Travel Fellowship Program, through the generosity of the Open Society Institute. Travel Fellowships are available for scholars and researchers from Iran to take part in academic and cultural conferences and conventions in the United States. Each Travel Fellowship covers all travel and lodging expenses of the recipient subject to a limit of $3000. The conditions for eligibility are engagement in teaching or research in the humanities or social sciences and an invitation or acceptance of a paper from the sponsors of the conference. No special application form is required. Applications must be received as far ahead of the time of travel as possible, and no later than three months before the conference to be attended. Those interested should submit a letter of application, together with a curriculum vitae and the letter of acceptance from the appropriate convention, to:

Professor Hamid Dabashi
MELAC
Kent Hall
Columbia University
New York, New York 10027 Fax 212 854-2566
hd14@columbia.edu

Conference sponsors may also apply on behalf of participants by submitting the same documentation.

Member News and Announcements

Janet Afary and Reza Afshari have guest-edited a special issue of Irân Nâmeh (Vol. XIX, Nos. 1-2, Winter & Spring 2001) devoted to the topic of non-Muslim communities in Iran. It contains seven articles in Persian (with abstracts in English), by Abdol-karim Lahidji, Jaleh Pirnazar, Jamsheed Choksy, Mohammad Tavakoli-Targhi, Houshang E. Chehabi, Reza Afshari and Ann Elizabeth Mayer.

Rudi Matthee’s book The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600-1730 (Cambridge University Press, 1999), was selected, with the works of five other scholars, as the best study on Iran in a language other than Persian published between 1995 and 2000. The prize, in the form of twelve gold coins, was awarded by the Iranian Minister of Culture, Mr. Imam-Jom`eh, during a ceremony in Tehran on December 18. The next day Prof. Matthee lectured at the University of Tehran, on the relevance of European archives to Iranian history. Rudi Matthee will be a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton during 2002-03.

John Perry has been awarded a Department of Education grant to compile a Reference Grammar of Tajik Persian during 2002-03. He is also the guest editor of the recently published special issue of Asian Folklore Studies 60.2 (2001): Folklore of the Iranian Region, containing articles by Kinga Márkus-Takeshita, Ulrich Marzolph, Margaret Mills, Mahmoud Omidsalar, Ravshan Ranmoni, Judith Wilks, Victoria Arakelova and Almuth Degener.


SOCIAL SCIENTISTS ADDRESS SEPTEMBER 11

The Social Science Research Council has launched a new website featuring essays on ÒAfter September 11: Perspectives from the Social Sciences.Ó Leading social scientists from around the world and from a number of social science disciplines have contributed to the project. The essays bring theoretical and empirical knowledge to bear on the events of September 11, on the circumstances that contributed to the attacks, and on the complicated prospects for the future. Contributors to the site include Olivier Roy, France's leading expert on political Islam, noted economist Barry Eichengreen, and distinguished sociologists Janet Abu-Lughod and ASPS President Said Arjomand.

The site may be accessed at http://www.ssrc.org/sept11.

It aims to broaden public discourse by providing a wide range of disciplinary and analytic perspectives from social scientists around the globe, and to serve as a resource for teachers at the secondary level as well as college and university instructors. Revised and expanded versions of these essays are to be published in two volumes by The New Press later in the year. ArjomandÕs will appear in the second volume, Erich Hershberg & Kevin Moore, eds., Terrorism and the International Order: Global Perspectives on 9-11 and its Aftermath.

Arjomand, who is also Editor of International Sociology, has recently published a special issue of that journal on ÒRethinking Civilizational AnalysisÓ (International Sociology, 16.3 [September 2001]) with an editorial introduction and an article on ÒPerso-Indian Statecraft, Greek Political Science and the Muslim Idea of Government.Ó In the same volume, Randall Collins offers a fairly extensive discussion of centers of learning in medieval Islam (ÒCivilizations as Zones of Prestige and Social ContactÓ), while Hamid Dabashi deconstructs the idea of civilization (ÒFor the Last Time: CivilizationsÓ).

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