ASPS Newsletter

The Nominations Committee has nominated Alice C. Hunsberger as the only candidate for the position of Secretary-Treasurer (in view of the fact that she had received a tied vote for the position last time), and the following four candidates for the two positions on the Board of Directors. The terms of office are three years. Please vote for two of the latter; follow the instructions on the ballot and mail promptly to Carrie Brown at the University of Arizona, where Anne Betteridge and she have kindly agreed to act as tellers.

Biographical Sketches of the Candidates

For Secretary-Treasurer:

Alice Hunsberger (Ph.D. Columbia University in Persian Studies and Islamic Philosophy, B.A. with honors New York University in Persian and Arabic literatures) is currently a development specialist with Asia Society in New York, where she is helping to organize a four-month season celebrating Persian culture with art exhibitions, performances, and lectures on a variety of topics, including Women and Social Change in Iran, HIV/AIDS in Iran, and Religious Minorities in Iran. She has just returned from her third visit to Tajikistan (see Member News). Hunsberger has taught at universities in Iran, London, and New York City, including (1999-2001) the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. She currently teaches on-line courses on contemporary Middle East issues for a consortium of Oxford-Yale-Stanford Universities. At Hunter College in NYC, she twice received first prize for excellence in teaching. Besides her book on Nasir Khusraw (see Member News), which has been translated to Persian and Tajik, she has numerous articles in journals, collections, and reference works. She has served on the ASPS Board (1999-2002), and previously as Treasurer for the Society for Iranian Studies and is Co-Chair (2003-2004) for Columbia University’s Seminar on Iranian Studies. In addition to her academic career, Hunsberger worked eleven years with Amnesty International USA, and has lectured in Tajikistan, Europe, and the US on issues of Islam, democracy, human rights, ethics and civil society.

For the Board of Directors:

Janet Afary received her M.A. from Tehran University and her Ph.D. in Modern Middle East History from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is currently an Associate Professor of History and Women’s Studies at Purdue University. Dr. Afary is President of the Coordinating Council for Women in History of the American Historical Association (CCWH-AHA) for 2001-2003, and incoming President of the Associa-tion for Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS-MESA). She has served on the Board of National Women’s Studies Association (1996-1998), the Council of Iranian Studies (1992-1996) and is presently a member of the Editorial Board of Iranian Studies (1998-). She is the author of The Iranian Constitutional Revolution: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism, NY: Columbia UP, 1996), which was also translated and published in Iran (Bisotoun, 2000). She has received a number of grants and fellowships from, e.g., the NEH, IREX, and the SOROS Foundation. Her most recent work has focused on the Caucasus, especially the republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia. She has edited or co-edited three volumes, and published numerous articles in journals as well as encyclopedia entries. Many of her articles and book chapters have also been translated or reprinted in Iran, Japan, Spain, the Netherlands, France, and Britain. Her forthcoming monograph (with Kevin Anderson) is Seductions of Islamism: Fou-cault, Feminism, and the Iranian Revolution (2004).

Jo-Ann Gross received her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University in 1982. She is Professor of History at The College of New Jersey. She has taught a wide range of courses on the Middle East and Central Asia in the medieval, pre-modern and modern periods, including topics on post-Mongol Iran and Central Asia, Islamic social history, women and gender, Sufism and shrine culture, Middle Eastern literature and film, and nationalism and identity formation in the modern Middle East. Her research interests focus on pre-modern Iran and Central Asia, with emphasis on the social history of Sufism in the Timurid period. She has published widely on aspects of Timurid history and the role of the Naqshbandi Sufi order: publications include her recent book (co-authored with Asom Urunbaev), The Letters of Khwaja ‘Ubayd Allah Ahrar and his Associates (Brill, 2002) and her edited book, Muslims in Central Asia: Expressions of Identity and Change (Duke UP, 1992). She has received numerous awards, including membership in the faculty of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a two-year NEH Collaborative Research Grant, and a forthcoming IREX Advanced Research Grant for her new project on the Muslim shrines of Tajikistan. She has served as Executive Secretary for the Society for Iranian Studies (1987-90) and as Secretary-Treasurer for ASPS (1999-2002). She has served as a member of the Editorial Board of IJMES and currently serves on the Editorial Board for Studies on Persianate Societies.

Ali Akbar Mahdi is Professor of Sociology at Ohio Wesleyan University. He has served as the President of Michigan Sociological Association (1987-1988), the editor of the Michigan Sociological Review (1989-1994), and the Executive Director of the Center for Iranian Research and Analysis (1993-95). He is the author of four books: Teen Life in the Middle East (Greenwood Press, 2003), Iranian Culture, Civil Society, and Concern for Democracy (1989), Sociology in Iran (1994), and Sociology of the Iranian Family (1975), five monographs (including Women and Law in Iran), and over 70 articles and reviews (in both Persian and English) in various scholarly journals and popular magazines, including IJMES, Iranian Studies, Critique, Feminist Forum, Contemporary Sociology, and Middle East Journal.

Farzin Vahdat received his Ph.D. in sociology from Brandeis University in 1998. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies for two years. He has taught at Vassar College and Tufts University. He currently teaches in Social Studies at Harvard University. His book, God and Juggernaut: Iran’s Intellectual Encounter with Modernity was published by Syracuse University Press in 2002.

TThe Association will be sponsoring a panel at this year’s meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, to be held November 6-9 2003 at the Hilton Anchorage and Egan Convention Center, Anchorage, Alaska: Panel P003, Saturday Nov. 8, 11 am-1 pm: The Internet in Iran: A Sociological Approach Chair and Organizer: Majid Mohammadi, SUNY- Stonybrook, Sociology. Majid Mohammadi, SUNY-Stonybrook: The Internet, a Treasure Chest of Information Farshad Bayan, Director and Editor-in-Chief of Gooya News Website: Iranian News Websites Reza Najafi, freelance writer, former instructor of Andisheh Cultural Center: Iranian Weblogs

As was announced in the previous Newsletter, the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS) calls for your participation in its Second Biennial Convention, titled “Society, History and Culture in the Persianate World,” to take place in Yerevan, Armenia, 2-4 April 2004. Details are to be found on the ASPS Web site: http://persiansocieties.uchicago.edu

Travel Fellowship Program

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:

Alice C. Hunsberger
545 West 111th St. 9D
New York, NY 10025
Tel. 212 666-9663; Fax 212 316-7830
alicehunsberger@hotmail.com

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

2003 ASPS Iran Travel Fellowships
Through August 2003, the Travel Fellowship Committee of ASPS has awarded travel fellowships to the following Iranian scholars. The first two have successfully received their visas to the U.S. and have pre-sented their papers.

03/1 Saeidi, Ali (Ministry of Higher Education, Iran) “The Accountability of Para-governmental Organizations: The Case of Iranian Foundations,” presented at the conference of the Center for Iran Research and Analysis, Mar. 28-30, 2003.

03/2 Abadian, Hossein“Iran-US Financial and Military Cooperation in 1943,” presented at the World War II Conference, Sienna College, Saratoga Springs, New York, June 5-6, 2003.

03/3 Bayan, Farshad (Gooya News Web site) “Iranian News Websites,” for the ASPS-sponsored panel, The Internet in Iran: A Sociological Perspective, Middle East Studies Association Annual Conference, Anchorage, Alaska, November 6-9, 2003.

03/4 Najafi, Reza (freelance writer) “Iranian Weblogs,” for the ASPS-sponsored panel, The Internet in Iran: A Sociological Perspective, MESA Annual Conference, Anchorage, Alaska, November 6-9, 2003.

03/5 Haghighi, Alireza (freelance journalist) “The Internet and Factional Politics in Iran,” for the ASPS-sponsored panel, The Internet in Iran: A Sociological Perspective, MESA Annual Conference, Anchorage, Alaska, November 6-9, 2003.

03/6 Yazdani, Enayatollah (PhD candidate, Australian National University) “Central Asian International Relations in the Post-Soviet Era: The Case of the United States,” for presentation at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Harvard University, Cam-bridge, Mass., October 2-5, 2003.

03/7 Vahe Boyajian (Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies, Yerevan, Armenia) “Sufi Brotherhoods in Baluchistan,” for presentation at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Central Eura-sian Studies Society, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., October 2-5, 2003. (airfare only)

Member News and Announcements

Call for Proposals:

XVI ISA World Congress of Sociology
Durban, South Africa, 2006
The location of the XVI ISA World Congress of Sociology in Durban, South Africa, 23-29 July 2006, provides a great opportunity to highlight specific themes of global relevance that are sensitive to African experiences and challenges. The ISA Programme Committee will be interested to receive suggestions for such thematic encounters. The Programme Committee invites members of the broader sociological community to submit proposals by September 15, 2003 to: Ari Sitas sitas@nu.ac.za (ISA Vice-President for Programme). A general call for papers will be issued in early 2004. ASPS will be presenting its own session at the ISA, as it did in Brisbane, Australia in 2002; Professor Poopak Taati has kindly agreed to organize this: poopak_taati@yahoo.com. For preliminary information on the congress venue, see http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/congress2006/

Call for Papers

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

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