Iran–Contra affair

Iran's nuclear program was declared peaceful and international sanctions against Iran were lifted. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an agreement between Iran, the US, and six other world powers, was and is the subject of what is currently America's most divisive foreign policy debate. Some see Iran as a threat to America’s dominance over the Middle East, while others see decades of ineffectual enmity with Iran and believe that compromise and cooperation will serve US interests. Some see a…

The Middle East suffers from a broad deficit in freedom and human rights compared to the rest of the world, especially regarding women’s rights and freedom of speech. There have been cases of severe infringement upon human rights, sparking popular uprisings in the Arab world and a war in Libya. Restraints on rights include the ability to report and speak freely. People who openly criticize the government are at risk of being thrown in jail. Overall, censorship in the media forces the loss in an…

Over the weeks I read the book, ‘Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women’ by, reporter, Geraldine Brooks. I read this book based on the interest in other similar books and my interest in stories and daily lives of women that live differently in middle eastern countries. Based on my interest in ‘Sold’ by Patricia McCormick. I took immediate interest in Brooks’ Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women’. Geraldine Brooks spent six years in the middle east as a…

I read Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins. The book is about a young woman who accidently enraged the leader of her country. The districts have a war against the Capital (where the leader is). The point of view is first person. The story takes place sometime in the future. The area it takes place in is not clear. The two forms of conflict are person vs. self and person vs. society. The main character in the story is Katniss Everdeen she is the mockingjay, (or the rebel leader.) She goes to a…

and she did not know why she could no longer go school with her male classmates. A sequence of restrictions follow as a public representative for Iran declares, “All bilingual schools must be closed down. They are symbols of capitalism. Of decadence” (Satrapi 4). The republic wants Iran to believe non muslims are wrong for indulgent qualities, and Iran is not living the way god intended if the people aren’t following the word of god. Debbie Notkin, who reviews women’s books, writes a critical…

El Cid was born in Vivar del Cid, Spain. He was born in 1040 and he died on July 10, 1099 in Valencia Spain his death was more than likely caused by a famine. Rodrigo was a Castilian noble man and a Military leader in Spain. Many people called him El Cis which meant the Lord. He was born into a poor family and was brought to serv King Ferdinand’s Son, Sancho. He worked hard enough to be the commander and rule armiger regis of Castile in 1065. He led his army against the rulers of the kingdoms of…

As a Fulbright fellow and masters’ student in social anthropology at Rutgers, I am actively conceptualizing the ethnographic project I wish to pursue at Harvard’s Ph.D. Program in Social Anthropology: the changing co-production of queer ethno-sexualities within the trans-cultural seascape extending across the Strait of Hormuz. As a queer man, atheist, and ethnic Baloch raised and based in a heteronormative Muslim Arab Gulf country (the UAE), coming from a family rooted in the Iranian Eastern…

restrictions or limits on everyone at this time. If Satrapi was not intending to show her bold character, she would not of made Marji a public enemy and simply had her listen to music and dress up in the safety of her own home. During this time in Iran, women were seen as…

While discussing Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, with my classmates during the interactive oral, I found the many forms of exile represented in the novel very interesting. For example, while traditional examples of exile were frequently represented (i.e. how Satrapi’s Uncle Anoosh exiled himself to Russia in order to escape the Shah’s army (57/3,4)), many non-traditional forms of exile where it is more abstract, and not necessarily a person sent from a place. One example of this form of exile is…

In Tehran, Iran in July of 1979, revolutionaries who were followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini forced the Iranian monarch, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, commonly referred to as the Shah of Iran to disband his government. The Shah then fled to Egypt. In October of 1979, President Jimmy Carter agreed to allow the Shah to come to the United States for cancer treatment. Because of this and other reasons, on November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students seized the United States Embassy in Tehran…