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Bilingual Lecture Series: Towfigh Magazine
A Celebration of 100 Years of the Towfigh Satirical Magazine
Sunday, February 4, 2024 I 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM | Royce Hall 314
Alternate live stream on Zoom:
This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the publication of the first issue of Towfigh satirical magazine in Iran, which addressed the bitter issues of the community with sweet and satirical stories. The popular Towfigh satirical magazine served Iranian people for approximately half a century. It was first published on May 20th 1923, and continued its publication until June 28th 1971.
About the Speakers
Janet Afary is a professor of Religious Studies and History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her books include: Sexual Politics in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2009); The Iranian Constitutional Revolution: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism (Columbia University Press, 1996; and (with Kamran Afary) Molla Nasreddin: The Making of a Modern Trickster (Edinburgh UP, 2022, winner of the 2023 British Society for Middle East Studies Annual Book Prize and the 2023 Eugenia M. Palmegiano Prize in the history of journalism from the American Historical Association.
Kazem Alamdari is a retired faculty of sociology at California State University, Northridge. He has published ten books and numerous articles. His first book, Why Iran Lagged Behind and the West Moved Forward, has been published 19 times in Iran. His article “Religion and Development Revisited: Comparing Islam and Christianity with Reference to the Case of Iran” in the Journal of Developing Societies has been named one of “The 50 Most-Frequently-Read Articles.” Alamdari was the recipient of a fellowship from the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) in Japan, Kyushu University.
Houchang Chehabi is a professor of international relations and history emeritus at Boston University. He is the author of four books, most recently Onomastic Reforms: Family Names and State Building in Iran. He has also edited or co-edited a dozen books and written numerous articles and book chapters.
Najmedin Meshkati is a Professor of Civil/Environmental Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering, and International Relations at the University of Southern California (USC). His interdisciplinary research is concerned with risk reduction and reliability enhancement of complex, safety-critical technological systems, e.g., aviation and nuclear power, and engineering diplomacy.
Abbas Towfigh earned his Ph.D. from Sorbonne University, Paris. He began his career as a satirist and editorial cartoonist for Towfigh magazine, of which he was an editor and served as Editor-in-Chief from 1957 to 1972. He has also served as a Professor of Sociology, Social Psychology and Press Sociology at several universities in Iran. He has also published in, and served as the president of, Humor in Los Angeles.