Research & Publications

 

 

Books

  • Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran: Interior Revolutions of the Modern Era (Routledge, 2013)

Reviewed in Journal of Design History, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Middle East Report, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, Association for Modern & Contemporary Art of the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey Reviews, Journal of the Anthropology of the Contemporary Middle East and Central Eurasia.

  • Alternative Iran: Contemporary Art & Critical Spatial Practice (Stanford University Press, August 2022)

Recipient of the 2021 Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association & the 2022 publication grant from the Graham Foundation for  Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. 

 

 

 

Edited Volumes

 

  • The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in the Middle East: From Napoleon to ISIS. Aggregate Architectural Collaborative, Scholarship of Activism Series. With Nasser Rabbat (Fall 2016). The full dossier was translated into Persian in Hamshahri’s Architecture Magazine (2017).
  • Reinventing the American Post-industrial City, Special Issue of The Journal of Urban History. With Thomas Stubblefield (Sage, 2015)
  • Content provider and coordinator for a volume of Zannegaar: An Online Journal of Women’s Studies (in Farsi and English): Jensiyyat va farhang-e masrafi [Gender and Consumer Culture] (August 2014).
  • Images of the Child and Childhood in Modern Muslim Contexts, Special issue of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. With Christiane Gruber (Duke University Press, 2012).
  • Thresholds. Vol. 32: Access (MIT 2006).

 

 

Articles in Peer Reviewed Journals and Refereed Books

  • “Art of Protest in Five Acts,” Roundtable on the “Woman, Life, Freedom” Revolution in Iran. The International Journal of Iranian Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
  • “Survival by Design,” The Environment and Ecology in Islamic Art. Edited by the Qatar Foundation (Newhaven: Yale University Press, 2023), 170-194.
  • “Appropriation in Contemporary Iranian Art,” Treasures of Modern and Contemporary Art from the Farjam Collection, (Newhaven: Yale University Press, 2023).
  • “History, Heritage, and the Site-specific in Iranian Art,” Journal of Visual Art Practice [special issue edited by Hamid Keshmirshekan] (Forthcoming in 2024).
  • “Life after Earth,” in an accompanying volume to the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, entitled How Will We Live Together. Edited by Hashem Sarkis (MIT Press, 2021), 111-115.
  • “The 1960s Iranian ‘Grand Tour’ as an Educational Rite of Passage,” in Radical Pedagogies: Architectural Education from the 1960s to the 1980s, eds., Beatriz Colomina, Ignacio G. Galán, Evangelos Kotsioris & Anna-Maria Meister (MIT Press, 2021), 235-240.
  • “Monument to an Alternate Islamist Movement: Hosseinyeh Ershad and its Legacy,” in Islamisms and the Built Environment, ed., Bülent Batuman. With Saba Madani (Routledge, 2021), 115-133.
  • “Tourism and Urbanism in Iran: Top-Down and Ad-Hoc Developments in the Caspian Region,” in Routledge Handbook on Middle Eastern Cities, , Haim Yacobi and Mansour Nasara (Routledge 2019), 177-196.
  • “Tehran’s Young Preservationists,” Harvard Design Magazine, Special issue: Seventeen (Fall 2017), 86-88.
  • “Tourism, Voyeurism, and the Media Ecologies of Tehran’s Mural Arts,” Murals and Tourism: Heritage, Politics and Identity, eds., Jonathan Skinner and Lee Jolliffe (Ashgate, 2016), 75-93.
  • “The Demise and Afterlife of Artifacts,” in The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in the Middle East: From Napoleon to ISIS. Aggregate Architectural Collaborative, Scholarship of Activism Series. With Nasser Rabbat (Fall 2016), online.
  • “Alternative Belongings,” in After Belonging: The Objects, Spaces, and Territories of the Ways We Stay in Transit, Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco in conjunction with Oslo Architecture Triennial (Zurich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2016), 98-110.
  • “Reinventing the American Postindustrial City,” special Issue of The Journal of Urban History (Sage, 2015), 147-157.
  • “Of Cultural Diplomacy and ‘Culture Games’: Curating Non-Western Art,” ArtMargines (MIT Press, 2014), 98-110.
  • “Old Sites, New Frontiers: Contemporary Architecture in Iran,” A Critical History of Architecture (1960-2010), eds., Elie Haddad and David Rifkind (Ashgate, 2014), 339-359.
  • “Architecture, Matter, and Mediation,” Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review (UC Berkeley Press, 2013), 45-53.
  • “Secular Dometicities, Shiite Modernities: Khomeini’s Illustrated Tawzih-al Masai’l,” Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East: Rhetoric of the Image, eds., Christiane Gruber and Sune Haugbølle (Indiana University Press, 2013), 32-57.
  • “The Politics and Poetics of the Child Image in Modern Muslim Contexts,” special issue of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. With Christiane Gruber. Vol. 32. N 2 (Duke University Press, 2012), 243-293.
  • “Dwelling, Dispute, and the Space of Modern Iran,” Governing by Design: Architecture and Crisis from Modernization to Sustainability, eds., Arindam Dutta, Daniel Abramson, and Timothy Hyde (Pittsburgh University Press, 2012), 119-146.
  • “Westoxification,” Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal. Vol. 43: Taboo (MIT Press, 2010), 191-199.
  • “Imagining Warfare, Imaging Welfare: Tehran’s Post Iran-Iraq War Murals and their Legacy,” Persica. Vol. 22 (Brill, 2008), 47-63.

 

 

Book Reviews/Short Essays

 

  • “Why on Earth Did Tehran’s Contemporary Art Museum Plant Vegetables in Its Yard?” Hyperallergic, https://hyperallergic.com/831772/why-on-earth-did-tehran-contemporary-art-museum-plant-vegetables-in-its-yard/. July 2023. 
  • “Woman, Art, Freedom,” Society for Cultural Anthropology (Culanth), July 2023.
  • “Arid Lands, Imperialist Ambitions,” review of Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia by Natalie Koch (Brooklyn, NY and London, UK: Verso, 2022). In Science Journal (2022).
  • “The Many Shades of Iran Protest Art,” Hyperallergic, https://hyperallergic.com/768539/the-many-shades-of-iran-protest-art/. October 2022.
  • “Bazarayi-e tasvir-e jadidi az Iran pas az Jang-e jahani-e dovvom [Constructing a New Image for Post WWII Iran]. In Pousheh Journal, Tehran, Iran (2023), 190-203.
  • Review of Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World, edited by Jeffrey Spier, Timothy Potts, and Sara E. Cole (Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum Press). In Choice Reviews (2022).
  • “Foreword” What People Do with Images by Mazyar Lotfalian (London: Sean Kingston Publishing (2022), v-vii.
  • Review of Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai by Todd Reisz (Stanford: Stanford University Press). In The American Historical Review, 2021.
  • Review of Persia Reframed: Iranian Visions of Modern and Contemporary Art by Fereshteh Daftari (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2019). In Burlington Contemporary (2020), online.
  • Review of Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s, eds., Suheyla Takesh, Lynn Gumpert (Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2020). In Choice Reviews (2019).
  • Review of Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection, ed., Lynn Gumpert (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018). In Choice Reviews (2019).
  • “Finding Hope Amidst an Uncertain Economy: Mehdi Ghadyanloo and the 2019 World Economic Forum.” In Michigan Quarterly Review (March 2019), online.
  • Review of Seizing Jerusalem: The Architecture of Unilateral Unification by Alona Nitzan-Shiftan (Minniapolis: University of Minnesotta Press, 2017). In JSAH (Spring 2019), 121-122.
  • Review of Technologies of the Image: Art in 19th Iran by David Roxburgh and Mary McWilliams (Connectticutt: Yale University Press, 2017). In Choice Reviews (2018).
  • “Effective on the Ground & Invisible to the Global Art Market: Participatory Art in the Middle East.” In Ibraaz: Contemporary Visual Culture in North Africa and the Middle East, an online journal (2016), online.
  • “In Memoriam: Zaha Hadid (1950-2016).” In London Middle East Institute Bulletin (May 2016), 29-30.
  • Review of The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and Mobility in the Contemporary Middle East by Kishwar Rizvi (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016). In Choice Reviews (2016).
  • Review of Contemporary Art from the Middle East: Regional Interactions with Global Art Discourses, ed., Hamid Keshmirshekan (London and New York: IB. Tauris, 2015). In London Middle East Institute Bulletin (2015), 35-36.
  • Review of Amazingly Original: Contemporary Iranian Art at Crossroads by Abbas Daneshvari (Los Angles: Mazda Publishers, 2014). In Choice Reviews (2015).
  • Review of Building Iran: Modernism, Architecture, and National Heritage under the Pahlavi Monarchs by Talinn Grigor (New York: Prestel Publishing, 2009). In CAA Reviews (2011), online.
  • Review of Art of the Middle East: Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World and Iran by Saeb Eigner and Zaha Hadid (London: Merrell Publishers, 2010). In Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey’s Reviews (2010), online.
  • Review of Transitions in Domestic Consumption and Family Life in the Modern Middle East: Houses in Motion by Relli Shechter (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). In Arab Studies Journal, Vol. XV. No. 1. Spring 2007 (Georgetown U Press, 2007), 30-33.
  • Review of Mute Dreams, Blind Owls, and Dispersed Knowledges: Persian Poesis in the Transnational Circuitry by Michael Fischer (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). In the Art Journal. 65. No. 2. (2006), 136-137.
  • Review of Mute Dreams, Blind Owls, and Dispersed Knowledges: Persian Poesis in the Transnational Circuitry by Michael Fischer (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). In International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 38, No.1. February 2006 (different from that published in The Art Journal, 2006), 58-59.
  • Review of Deconstructing the American Mosque: Space, Gender, and Aesthetics by Akel Ismail Kahera (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002). In International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Vol. 36. No.1. (2004), 78-79.
  • “Oshin’s Forelock.” In Bidoun: Art and Culture from the Middle East. Vol.16: Kids (winter 2009), online and print, 104-107.
  • “The Kooler [air conditioner].” In Bidoun: Art and Culture from the Middle East. Vol.14: Objects (spring 2008), online and print, 77-79.
  • “Ornament and Argument.” In Bidoun: Art and Culture from the Middle East. With Michael Vazquez. Vol.13: Glory (winter 2008), online and print, 93-97.
  • “Policymaking and Housekeeping: President Truman’s Point IV Program and the Making of the Modern Iranian Home.” In Thresholds. Vol. 30: Microcosms (MIT, 2005), 29-37.
  • “Measurement and Ratios in Persepolis’ Hundred Column Hall.” In Me’mar Journal. In Persian and in conjunction with Kamran Afshar-Naderi. Vol. 21 (March 2000), 30-33.

 

 

Encyclopedia and Reference Book Entries

 

  • Multiple entries on modern Iranian art: “Siah Armajani,” “Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA),” “Mohammad Ghaffari (Kamal al-Molk),” “Bahman Mohassess,” “Marcos Gregorian,” “Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian,” “Shadi Ghadirian,” “Behjat Sadr,” “Reza Derakhshani,” “Apadana Gallery,” “Parviz Tanavoli,” “Shiraz Art Festival,” “Qajar Art,” “Saqqakhana Movement,” for Enciclopedia Italiana, Fondata Da Giovanni Treccani (Arte, lingua, e letteratura), Rome, Italy (2019), each 1 page.
  • “Azadi Tower, Tehran” for World Architecture and Society(ABC/CLIO, 2020), 5 pages.
  • “Point VI Program (US Home Economics Education in Iran),” for the Encyclopedia of American Expansionism (2016), 2 pages.
  • “Women, Gender, and Urban Built Environments in Iran,” for the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Culture Vol. IV (Brill, 2006), 4-5.

 

 

Catalogue Essays/ Exhibition Reviews

 

  • “The Painter of History’s Blind Spots,” for a solo exhibition of Tehran-based artist, Mehdi Farhadian at the Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York (2018), 4 pages.
  • “When the Subaltern Speaks:  Reflections on the Participatory Art of Joan Marie Kelly,” for Invisible Persons at the Blue Mountain Gallery, New York (2018), 14-17.
  • “Denatured” for a volume on Gohar Dashti’s photography, published by Ars Libri Ltd. Boston, MA (2017), 10-12.
  • “Experiencing the Sublime in Tehran: The Pains and Pleasures of the Overwhelming in the Paintings of Mehdi Ghadyanloo,” for Howard Griffin Gallery Off-Site Project in central London, UK (2017), online.
  • “Revisiting “Anti Form”: Patterns of Growth and Deterioration in the Works of Rebecca Hutchinson and Michael Kukla,” for Instinctive Formation at the Dedee Shattuck Gallery, Dartmouth, MA (2016), 4 pages.
  • “Art and the Anthropocene,” for Art and the Anthropocene in the Middle East, a juried show at the Niyavaran Cultural Center, Tehran, Iran (2016), 2 pages.
  • “Surface as Contact Zone: Tactile Sensations in Corpus VI’s Figurative Art,” for A Collective Body: Uncovered and Illuminated, a group exhibition featuring the work of Corpus VI, New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA (2015), 2 pages.
  • “Mehdi Ghadyanloo and the Aestheticizing Revolution in Tehran,” for Perception, a solo exhibition of Mehdi Ghadyanloo at the Howard Griffin Gallery, London, UK (2015), 58-74.
  • “Notes on Nietzsche, Nobel Beauty, and Persian Art,” for Nietzsche Was A Man, an exhibition of video art by 20 Iranian artists at Pori Art Museum, Finland (2015), 28-29.
  • “Weapons of the Resilient: A Postscript to ‘She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World’” for an Exhibition of photographs by women artists from the Middle East at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In Jadaliyya https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/30454 (2014), online.
  • “Finding the Marrow of Form: Musing on the Art of Being Anthony Quinn,” for Duende: The Art of Anthony Quinn, an exhibit of the art of the late actor Anthony Quinn at Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, MA (2012), 2 pages.
  • “From Art-Making to Art-Thinking,” for Bimarz an exhibit in Tehran, Iran (2011),” a review of Persbook Festival of the Arts for Honar- e Farda/ Art Tomorrow. Vol. 6 (2012), 2 pages.
  • “Ideas and Ideals of the Female Form,” for Embodied, an exhibition of works by Stacy Latt Savage and Laurie Kaplowitz at Kniznick Gallery, Brandeis University (2011), 2 pages.

 

 

Translations

 

  • Translation of the preface to Passage to England? The Travels of Salar Jang II, ed. Sunil Sharma and Omar Khalidi (Tehran: Nashr-i Tarikh Publishers). December 2008 (English→Persian), 12 pages.
  • Translation of “American Mosque Architecture” by Omar Khalidi, “Memari Masajid dar Amrica.” In Ketab-i Mah: Honar. Vol. 99-100, March 2007(English→Persian), 8 pages.

 

 

Published Interviews in Peer-reviewed Journals

  •  “Alternative Iran: Contemporary Art and Critical Spatial Practice (New Texts Out Now).” Jadaliyya. https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/45073. June 2023.
  • “Evocative Remnants: Reactivating the ‘Lost’ Treasures of the European Avant-garde,” in Vol. 37: Inertia, 2012. With Anna Dempsey and Matthew Benjamin (MIT, 2012), 24-37.
  • “When Global Art Meanders on a Magic Carpet: A Conversation on Tehran’s Roaming Biennale (30 May-6 July 2009)” in Arab Studies Journal. XVIII No. 1. Spring 2010 (Georgetown University Press, 2010), 288-299.
  • “Picturing the ‘Exhausted Globe’: An Interview with Shana and Robert ParkeHarrison,” in Thresholds. Vol. 32: Access, Fall 2006 (MIT, 2006), 18-25.
  • “From Miniatures to Mixiatures: An Interview with Soody Sharifi,” in Arteeast: Art and Politics, ed. Sarah Rogers (2006), online.

 

 

Media

  • Interview with Daricheh. Student-run Journal of the School of Architecture. Faculty of Fine Arts, Tehran University.
  • Interview with Asiatimes. “Iranian Artists Reluctant To Get Back To Business As Usual.” 2023.
  • Interview with New Books Network. Available at https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/arts-letters/art. 2022. Podcast.
  • Interview with Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Rethinking Iran Program. 2022. YouTube.
  • Interview with Etemad Magazine, Tehran, on the Farsi translation of Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran, December 2021. Print.
  • Public lectures at Tehran University virtual platforms, May, and October 2021. Media.
  • Conversation, Instagram Live for Persbook Art Collective, Tehran, Iran. Media.
  • Conversation with Iranian critic, Pouria Jahanshad for Nahib Magazine, Tehran, Iran, September 2021. Podcast and print.
  • Interview with the Koubeh Magazine, Tehran, Iran. Print.
  • Interview with Nahib Magazine, Tehran, Iran, 2021. Podcast.
  • Interview with the BBC Persian, podcast: Shahr Series (City Series), 2020. Podcast and media.
  • Interview with the House of Artists in Tehran (Khaneh Honarmandan). 2020. Podcast.
  • Interview with London based TV, Moonchik Media on COVID 19 and new orientations in architectural design. 2020. Media.
  • Interview with Tehran-based Vista Gallery media network about art in post-industrial cities. Podcast.
  • Interview with RIBA Journal about Covid-19 and usage of historic Iranian shrines for making masks. 2020. Print.
  • Interview with South Coast Today, Dartmouth Newspaper, and the Torch for Contemporary Iranian Art & the Historical Imagination exhibition. 2020. Print.
  • Interview with LA Times about the threat to Iranian cultural Heritage. 2020. Print.
  • Interview with Dnevnik, one of the most prominent daily newspapers in Ljubljana, Slovenia, about the destruction of cultural heritage in the Middle East. 2018. Print.
  • Interview with South Coast Today, “Events to Showcase New Bedford’s Abolitionist History and Interracial Neighborhoods.” 2016. Print.
  • Interview with NPR, Northern California about the art of Morehshin Allahyari. 2015. Radio.
  • Interview with the BBC Persian about the art of Parviz Tanavoli. TV.
  • Interview with The Torch about service learning. 2013. Media.
  • Interview with South Coast “Local Projects Illustrate the Importance of Nurturing a Cultural Economy.” 2012; “Grit and (faded) glory: new photography exhibit at NBAM.” 2013. Print.
  • Interview with the BBC Persian about the Politics of Architectural Design in Post-Revolutionary Iran. 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/tv. Media.
  • Conversation with The Torch Magazine about teaching and working at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. 2010. Print.