Events

Event details

Join us for a panel discussion on art and activism in Iran and Afghanistan with Katayoun Amjadi, Yalda Hamidi and Tahmina Sobat, moderated by Sima Shakhsari.

When: February 27, 2023 at 7pm
Where: Open Book, 1011 South Washington Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55415
Space is limited, RSVP REQUIRED

“Woman, Life, Freedom” and “Bread, Work, Freedom” are among the powerful demands made on the streets in Iran and Afghanistan. Through a conversation between Iranian and Afghan artists, activists, and scholars, this event will explore the ongoing revolutionary women’s movement in Iran, as well as responses to the recent closures of women’s universities in Afghanistan.

By outlining differences and solidarities between the two distinct situations, and the intersections of artistic expression and feminist activism amid the ongoing movements, the panelists discuss the connections between geopolitics, economy, gender, militarization, nationalism, diasporas, securitization, and fundamentalisms. What role do artists, activists, and academics play in supporting the ongoing movements in Iran and Afghanistan?

The panelists include visual artist Katayoun Amjadi, Minnesota State University Mankato assistant professor of Gender and Women’s Studies Yalda Hamidi, and human rights lawyer, Afghan women’s peace activist, and doctoral student Tahmina Sobat. Moderated by Sima Shakhsari, associate professor and chair of the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota.

This panel is presented in conjunction with a Schubert Club Mix concert, Persia to Iberia, featuring Iranian vocalist Mahsa Vahdat, harpist Bridget Kibbey, and percussionist John Hadfield on March 1, 7:30pm at Parkway Theater. More information and tickets available here.

Only Voice Remains is co-presented by Mizna, University of Minnesota Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, and the Loft Literary Center.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Katayoun Amjadi is an Iranian-born, Minneapolis-based artist, educator, and independent curator. In her work, she often considers the sociopolitical systems that shape our perceptions of Self and Other, such as language, religion, gender, politics, and nationalist ideologies. She blurs these boundaries and creates an off-balance, hybrid style, slightly acerbic and a little bit tongue-in-cheek. Her art probes the relationship between past and present, tradition and modernity, and individual versus collective identity, and simultaneously seeks to spur discussion about our place in the temporal arc and the interwoven roots of our histories. Amjadi holds an MFA in ceramics and sculpture from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and has been the recipient of 20/21 MCAD-Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship. Her performative installation work will be part of a group exhibition titled Underneath Everything: Humility and Grandeur in Contemporary Ceramics at the Des Moines Art Center from June 2–September 10, 2023.

Dr. Yalda Hamidi  is Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at Minnesota State University. She is interested in transnational and Islamic feminisms, feminist pedagogy, and feminist cultural and literary studies. Her article, “Politics of Location in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis” is under publication in the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies. In 2020, she published “Locating Sickness: Disability, Queerness, and Race in a Memoir” in Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research. Yalda presented her research to multiple academic conferences and workshops on Iranian and Diasporic feminism and literature, feminist pedagogy, and teaching to students from religious and racial minority groups. Yalda facilitated the “Islamic Feminism Book Club” in collaboration with the Women’s Center. She will continue her partnership with the Women’s  & LGBT Centers on the politics of representation of Queer and Somali Muslims in the media and academic life.

Tahmina Sobat is a women human rights lawyer from Afghanistan. She obtained a law degree from the Herat University of Afghanistan in 2015. Through the FPJRA scholarship, she made to earn her LLM degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Notre Dame in 2020. Afterward, she started her second master’s degree in Gender and Women Studies through the Fulbright Scholarship at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She has also been through a fruitful career path. She started her professional experience working as a Monitoring and Evaluation Assistant for Women Empowerment Program at Zardozi Organization. In 2017, she started her next professional position as Deputy Ombudsperson at Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). She has done extensive research in legal analysis of women’s rights, including women’s harassment in the workplace in Afghanistan; women’s role in peace-building, case-study of Afghanistan; and a book review: “A Woman's Place: US Counterterrorism Since 9/11,” which is under consideration at Feminist Pedagogy Journal for publication. Over and above that, during her Ph.D. degree, she is aiming to conduct research titled “The Role of Grassroots Feminism in Demilitarization and Peace-Building in Afghanistan.” This research is highly interdisciplinary in which she will have an international human rights law and transnational feminist approach. Her research will offer a new perspective of the US counterterrorism strategies and Afghan women’s advocacies and resistance.