In this episode, Belle interviews Niloofar Haeri, Anthropology Professor at Johns Hopkins University, about her recent book, Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran (Stanford University Press, 2021).
In Say What Your Longing Heart Desires (and in our podcast episode), Haeri illustrates how poetry shaped and transformed the religious lives and practices of a group of women in contemporary Iran. The ethnography traces how the historic and culturally-ingrained practice of poetry reading and recitation of mystic poetry in particular, intertwined with prayer, helped these women situate their relationship to the divine.
In this episode, Rustin speaks with Leyli Gafarova, an independent filmmaker and the co-creator of Salaam Cinema, a community-driven independent cinema space showcasing non-commercial,...
In this episode, Rustin is joined by Dr. Neda Maghbouleh and Dr. Narges Bajoghli to interview Dr. Amy Malek, Assistant Professor of International Studies...
In this episode, we discuss urban development in post-Soviet Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Rustin is joined by Elena Darjania, a Tbilisi-based architect and...