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Drs. Fereidoun and Katharine Mirhady Endowed Lecture in Iranian Studies
Explore Iranian history and culture
The Drs. Fereidoun and Katharine Mirhady Endowed Lecture in Iranian Studies is an Annual Lecture series featuring research and scholars with a particular focus on Iran and its role in the wider Middle East. Every Mirhady Scholar hosts two events - a public event for everyone interested in Iran and Iranian history, and a research colloquium for students and researchers at 911吃瓜 and around the province. It ran annually from 2002 - 2020, went on a hiatus due to the Coronavirus-19 Pandemic, and restarted in 2024.
Upcoming Mirhady Lecture and Colloquium
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Register by emailing histcomm@sfu.ca
Recent Mirhady Scholars
2025 Mirhady Scholar - Mikiya Koyagi
Mikiya Koyagi is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. His first book, , won the 2023 Japan Consortium for Area Studies Book Award and the 2022 Saidi-Sirjani Book Award.
"Iran in Motion: Contested Histories of the Trans-Iranian Railway"
October 16, 2025
Using published and archival materials from Iran, England, the United States, and Denmark, this lecture examines the history of the Trans-Iranian Railway, Iran鈥檚 first national railway completed in 1938.
2024 Mirhady Scholar - Golnar Nikpour
Golnar Nikpour is an Assistant Professor of History at Dartmouth College and a scholar of modern Iranian political and intellectual history. Her first book, , is available from Stanford University Press.
"The Making of the Carceral State in Modern Iran"
April 4, 2024
This lecture examines the making of Iran鈥檚 modern prison system and argues that this system is a foundational institution of Iranian political modernity.
Past Mirhady Scholars and Lectures
- Hadi Khorsandi and Mostafa Abedinifard (UBC), "The Politics of Parody: A Conversation with Hadi Khorsandi," 2020.
- Nahid Siamdoust (Yale) "Soundtrack of the Revolution: The Politics of Music in Iran," 2019.
- Ali Mirsepassi (New York University) "The Imaginary Invention of a Nation: Iran in the 1930s and 1980s," 2018.
- Ali Ansari (University of St Andrews) "The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran," 2017.
- Kathryn Babayan (Michigan), 鈥淒isturbing the City of Isfahan: An Urban Education of the Senses,鈥� 2016.
- Cyrus Schayegh (Princeton), 鈥淕lobal Iran: Reflections on the Modern Period,鈥� 2015.
- Sheila Canby (Metropolitan Museum of Art), 鈥淭he Material World of Safavid Iran, 1524-40,鈥� 2013.
- Touraj Daryaee (University of California, Irvine), 鈥淚ranshahr among the Sasanians: The Construction and Representation of an Idea and a Culture,鈥� 2012.
- Janet Afary (University of California, Santa Barbara), 鈥淕ender Reforms and Female Sexuality in the Pahlavi Era,鈥� 2011.
- Homa Katouzian (St. Antony鈥檚 College, Oxford), 鈥淚ranian Concepts of Liberty and Law in Comparative Perspective,鈥� 2010.
- Ervand Abrahamian (Baruch College, City University of New York), 鈥淭he History of Show Trials in Iran,鈥� 2009.
- Dick Davis (Ohio State), 鈥淲ho鈥檚 Afraid of Vis and Ramin and Why?鈥� 2008.
- Afsaneh Najmabadi (Harvard), "Science and Sex: Transing and Transpassing across Gender-Sex Walls in Contemporary Iran," 2007.
- Abbas Amanat (Yale), "Nonconformity and Toleration in the Persianate Cultural Climate,鈥� 2006.
- Farzaneh Milani (Virginia), "When the Rose Speaks and the Nightingale Listens: Iranian Women Writers at Home and Abroad," 2005.
- Farhad Daftary (IIS, London), "The Persian Contribution to Ismaili History and Culture," 2004, with manuscript exhibition.
- Roy Mottahedeh (Harvard) "The Strange and the Marvelous in Iranian Literature and Art," 2003.
- Hamid Dabashi (Columbia), "Ferdowsi and the Art of Storytelling," 2002.