{"id":131,"date":"2006-10-26T17:03:06","date_gmt":"2006-10-27T00:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/26\/i-just-met-azar-nafisi\/"},"modified":"2020-10-09T06:39:23","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T13:39:23","slug":"i-just-met-azar-nafisi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/i-just-met-azar-nafisi\/","title":{"rendered":"I just met Azar Nafisi!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, if having her sign her book Reading Lolita in Tehran<\/a>\"\" counts as having met her. I read the book back in June<\/a>, and was absolutely captivated, and kept it in the back of my mind to see her speak if it ever become remotely possible. And then I found out she was coming to Baylor and, even better, the lecture was free! Awesome.<\/p>\n

She spoke about “The Republic of Imagination,” and how important it is to have a “space” in modern life that isn’t defined by politics or politicized religion or science, but defined by an open and curious inquiry into humanity, led by literature. She’s as excellent a speaker as she is a writer, and she had an audience of probably two hundred (they had to bring in about twice as many chairs as they originally had set up in order to fit everyone) absolutely enthralled for over an hour. I think she brought up some excellent points, especially regarding our tendency to conflate all predominantly Islamic countries as “The Muslim World,” when the countries that make up the “Muslim World” range from Morocco to Saudi Arabia to Turkey to Iran to Indonesia–all of which have individual histories and cultures that cannot be so easily reduced to “Islamic.” She suggested that defining all these countries purely by their current status as Muslim-regimed is similar to defining the United States by its two hundred years of slavery and segregation, and Europe by the Inquisition and Hitler. Now, I understand that there is a very real difference between Islam and Christianity, and she doesn’t address that (either in the lecture, or in the book), because she’s really a secular humanist, but her point about failing to take into account the thousands of years of history and literature of these countries because of what is, in Iran’s case at least, a twenty-five-year-old totalitarian dictatorship is well-taken.<\/p>\n

In any case, she not only had thought-provoking things to say, but a very personable speaking presence–very humorous and witty. I want to be an academic like her. Except, not in academia. Have to figure that part out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, if having her sign her book Reading Lolita in Tehran counts as having met her. I read the book back in June, and was absolutely captivated, and kept it in the back of my mind to see her speak if it ever become remotely possible. And then I found out she was coming to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[362,18,363],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":171,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/best-of-2006\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":0},"title":"Best of 2006","author":"Jandy","date":"January 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not quite finished with the December reading\/watching recap, but since publishing \"best of\" lists is the thing to do at the end of the year, I figured I could go ahead and do that. And by \"best of 2006\" I mean \"best that I saw or read in 2006,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/june-readingwatching-recap\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":1},"title":"June Reading\/Watching Recap","author":"Jandy","date":"July 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"After the jump, reactions to Thumbsucker, Elizabethtown, Winchester '73, Junebug, A History of Violence, Smiles of a Summer Night, Reading Lolita in Tehran, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and more! Read more.... Movies Sholay This movie title has been popping up everywhere since I started to get into Indian film\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36765,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/chrono-watch-catching-up-1888-1899\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":2},"title":"Chrono Watch: Catching Up (1888-1899)","author":"Jandy","date":"June 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Just to get back up to speed, here's a quick rundown of the first couple of decades of cinema, with a few thoughts about some highlights. 1888-1893: Experiments Cameras that could take multiple shots in quick succession were just being developed, and the earliest films are more snippets of experiments\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chrono Project"","block_context":{"text":"Chrono Project","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/chrono-project\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Lumiere-Factory.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Lumiere-Factory.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Lumiere-Factory.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Lumiere-Factory.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Lumiere-Factory.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":31403,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/the-avengers-things-i-liked-things-i-didnt\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":3},"title":"The Avengers: Things I Liked, Things I Didn’t","author":"Jandy","date":"May 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Excuse me while I geek out for a moment. Okay, I'm cool now. Until this past year, I've never really been a comics or superhero type person (and I still don't read much Marvel, though DC has their hooks into me something fierce), but Marvel's movie series has been getting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Avengers03.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4008,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/review-never-let-me-go\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":4},"title":"Review: Never Let Me Go","author":"Jandy","date":"October 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"[Rating:4.5\/5] Science fiction in the vein of Never Let Me Go is a rare thing - not showy or obvious, no aliens or space travel, no visible scientific apparatus, nothing really even explicitly stated. Yet the characters' lives are utterly defined and guided by science fiction elements, and the kind\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/never_let_me_go.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":257,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/no-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":131,"position":5},"title":"No words","author":"Jandy","date":"March 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I just found out that one of my friends committed suicide on Thursday. I met her a few years ago on one of the Buffy fanboards, we roomed together in LA for a weekend, and she was really wonderful person--always had the right thing to say when I was down,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Personal"","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}