Iranians for Peace and Justice

Session 1: Saturday, February 6, 3-6 pm.
Almost a hundred audience members heard Michael Craig Hillmann’s analysis in English of Rumi’s “Song of the Reed” (the first 18 couplets of Masnavi-ye Ma’navi, Bijan Afkhami’s readings of seven Rumi poems from Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, and a lecture in Persian on “Rumi’s World” by Bahram Moshiri, Iranian American television personality, social critic, and political activist. Audience members found Afkhami’s readings inspirational and Moshiri’s lecture rich in background information.

Session 2: Sunday, February 7, 12 noon.
Students in UT’s Modern Persian Poetry Seminar met over lunch to discuss in Persian Rumi’s Poetry and Sohrab Sepehri’s Seda-ye Pa-ye Ab [The Sound/Voice of Water’s Footsteps]. Nastaran Kherad, Persian Studies Ph.D. candidate and author of In the House of My Bibi: Growing up in Revolutionary Iran, opened the discussion with a reading from Sepehri’s poem, and Koorosh Angali, Associate Professor of Persian at Defense Language Institute (Monterey, CA) and poet, painter, and musician,  read and analyzed Sepehri’s “Sure-ye Tamaasha” [Stroll Sura] as a commentary on the nature of the Islam which the speaker of The Sound/Voice of Water’s Footsteps professes. The most successful such academic session ever at a UT Persian Studies literature conference, the discussion lasted almost five hours!

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For immediate release: February 8, 2010

Contacts:
Sheida Soheili (512)567-0061 Soheilies@aol.com
Banafsheh Madaninejad (979)525-9366 bmadaninejad@gmail.com

What: “Green Steps of Iran” art installation on the UT campus in support of the Iranian Green Movement.

Where: by the West Mall Bldg, UT campus:

http://www.utexas.edu/maps/main/buildings/wmb.html

When: Friday, February 12^th

“Green Steps of Iran” is a collaborative Green shoe installation piece in support of the Iranian Green Movement.  The Iranian regime has elevated its brutal crackdown on the defenseless population.  In an unprecedented move, the regime executed two imprisoned demonstrators a few days ago.  As the international community, we feel obligated in keeping the Green struggle alive as the stakes become higher and more costly for our brothers and sister inside Iran.

With this in mind, a group of concerned citizens in Austin have created “The Green Steps of Iran” art installation to symbolize that country’s tireless green march towards emancipation from tyranny. Please come by and support the movement on Friday the 12^th of February on the UT campus.

Sponsored by Austin for Iran UT, Iranians for Peace and Justice UT, Austin Permanent Peace Protest.

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For more information visit austinforiran.org

ISL 372 (42083), MES 321K (42207), PRS 361 (42438), RS 358 (44517)

Jalaloddin Rumi (1207-1273), the premier Middle Eastern “Sufi” poet, is a bestselling author in the West and perhaps the most popular poet in America. This Persian literature-in-translation course, designed for undergraduate students without any background in Iranian Studies or the Persian language, examines the Rumi phenomenon through a close reading of representative texts of translated Persian poems and, in the process, dispels popular myths about Rumi and other Persian poets. On the occasion of this course, a Rumi Teach-In will take place on 7–9 February, involving guest speakers, a panel discussion, film screenings, music, and recitations from Rumi’s poetry.

Required course texts are: The Koran (2006) translated by Anonymous and N.J. Dawood; The Koran: A Very Short Introduction (2000) by Michael Cook; Rumi–Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings, and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi (2007, revised edition) by Franklin Lewis; and a packet of Persian texts in translation and commentary.

Course grading takes into account class recitation and participation in discussion (30% of the course grade), two review tests (20% of the course grade each), and a term paper (30% of the course grade). Term papers present a personal impression of a Rumi text chosen by the student, that personal impression grounded in concepts and information developed in class and in course readings. The course has no final examination.

The opening course session on January 19 at 5 pm in CBNA 4.344 is a lecture (open to the public) by course instructor Michael Craig Hillmann on “Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubaíyát of Omar Khayyám vis-à-vis Sufism.”