Experts
Azar Nafisi
Professor, Johns Hopkins University
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Azar Nafisi: Which Presidential candidate would deal with Iran best?
Obama would be great, and McCain is a paradox. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Politics & Policy
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Azar Nafisi: What do you think of Condoleezza Rice's democracy promotion in Iran?
The Secretary's programs lack the necessary depth to be effective, Nafisi says. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Politics & Policy
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Azar Nafisi: Western Mythology: What is the West really fighting?
The West should be fighting extremist ideology. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Belief
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Azar Nafisi: Iranian Mythology: How do we decode Iran?
Azar Nafisi on Iranian culture being more poetry than sharia. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Belief
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Azar Nafisi: What are the biggest misconceptions of the Muslim woman?
They aren't identical, Nafisi says. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Politics & Policy
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Azar Nafisi: What do you think of Ayaan Hirsi Ali?
Even if you don't agree with her views, Nafisi says, Hirsi Ali should not have to fear for her life for expressing them. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Belief
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Azar Nafisi: How has your relationship to Islam changed?
Nafisi's passion was always literature. Religion was an externally imposed reality. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Belief
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Azar Nafisi: Do you do women a disservice by portraying them as victims?
Nafisi isn't making up the facts, she says. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Arts & Culture
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Azar Nafisi: Is Islam hostile to women?
The Prophet's first wife was his boss. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Belief
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Azar Nafisi: The Turkish Hijab Debate
No one should be forced to do something they don't want to do, Nafisi says. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Belief
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Azar Nafisi: Why does the hijab bother you so much?
It is not women who make a big deal out of the hijab, Nafisi says. It is the Islamists. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Belief
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Azar Nafisi: Were you writing about an Iran that no longer exists?
Nafisi responds to her critics who allege that Iran has become freer since Nafisi left. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Politics & Policy
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Azar Nafisi: The Girls of "Reading Lolita in Tehran"
Nafisi found many of her old students when the book came out. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Arts & Culture
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There is state power, and then there is the power of the writer to resist the tyranny of reality. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Politics & Policy
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Azar Nafisi: Is it possible to separate the personal from the political?
At some point, it isn't, Nafisi says. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Politics & Policy
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Azar Nafisi: Politicizing Nabokov
Nabokov, Nafisi says, was a lot more political than he let on. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Politics & Policy
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Trained as a Nabokov scholar, Azar Nafisi formed a very personal bond to the writer's works. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Inspiration & Wisdom
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Azar Nafisi: Which culture do you most identify with?
Nafisi on the "portable world." Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Identity
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Azar Nafisi: What is better in Iran?
Nafisi is puzzled by the simplification and self-righteousness she encounters in America. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In Politics & Policy
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Azar Nafisi: What was it like living in Iran as a Western-educated woman?
Iran, Nafisi says, is a very paradoxical place. Read More
March 18, 2008 | In History
Azar Nafisi is best known as the author of the national bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, which electrified its readers with a compassionate and often harrowing portrait of the Islamic revolution in Iran and how it affected one university professor and her students. The book has spent over 117 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Azar Nafisi’s new book, Things I Have Been Silent About: Memories, a memoir about her mother, was published in January 2009.
Azar Nafisi is a Visiting Professor and the executive director of Cultural Conversations at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, where she is a professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature, and teaches courses on the relation between culture and politics. Azar Nafisi held a fellowship at Oxford University, teaching and conducting a series of lectures on culture and the important role of Western literature and culture in Iran after the revolution in 1979. She has taught at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University and Allameh Tabatabaii.
