Moments of Silence

Arta Khakpour studied modern Persian literature at NYU's Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, where he defended his dissertation, ""Each Into a World of His Own: Mimesis, Modernist Fiction, and the Iranian Avant-Garde."" His research examines the role of literary magazines and salons in developing modernist fiction in post-Reza Shah Iran, focusing particularly upon their theoretical and literary interventions in the evolution of anti-realist narrative techniques. His articles are featured in the journals Iranian Studies and Middle East Literatures, and in 2013, he worked as the archive consultant for Asia Society's award-winning Iran Modern exhibition.Shouleh Vatanabadi teaches Global Cultures in the Global Liberal Studies Program at NYU. She has been a member of NYU fulltime faculty since 1991. Her areas of specialization include: Cultral Studies; Middle East Studies; Iranian and Turkish Studies; Women's Studies; Transnational and Postcolonial Studies. Her current work focuses on the intersections of cultural studies and the politics of translation of the Middle East and the global South-North and South - South cultural flows. She is the co-editor and translator of the award winning book, A Feast in the Mirror: Stories by Contemporary Iranian Women (Boulder: Lynn Rienner Publishers, 2000) and, Another Sea, another Shore: Persian Stories of Migration (Northampton, MA: Interlink Publishing Group, 2004). Among her recent articles are, "Stories beyond Histories, Translations Beyond Nations" in Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 18 (2) 2009, and "Translating the Transnational" in Cultural Studies, (special Issue: Transnationalism and Cultural Studies), Vol. 23(5&6) 2009, "Uneven Bridge of Translation: Turkey in between East and West" the Cultural Politics of the Middle East in the Americas eds. Ella Shohat and Evelyn Alsultany, University of Michigan Press, 2013.Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami is Professor of Persian language and literature at New York University. His research field is contemporary Persian fiction. His new book, Literary Subterfuge and Contemporary Persian Fiction: Who Writes Iran? (2014) focuses on identifying classical and modern rhetorical and aesthetic dynamisms and their functions in forming literary discourses. His publications include Modern Reflections of Classical Traditions in Persian Fiction (2003), Sohrab's Wars: Counter-Discourses of Contemporary Persian Fiction (tr. & ed., 2008), A Feast in the Mirror: A Collection of Short Stories by Iranian Women (co-ed., & co-tr., 2000) and Another Sea, Another Shore: Persian Stories of Migration (co-ed., & co-tr., 2003). He is the founder and co-director of The Association for the Study of Persian Literature (www.persian-literature.org).

"Stories of the life experiences of religious minorities, refugees, displaced and exiled population, prisoners, children, women, and the diverse ethnicities of both Iran and Iraq, during the war, were ignored and neglected in the official histories. Moments of Silence: Authenticity in the Cultural Expressions of the Iran–Iraq War, 1980–1988 is an attempt to reflect parts of that untold story … the book offers some essays that are a substantive contribution to the literature of the war and the Middle East. Those who wish to broadly understand different aspects of the Iran–Iraq war will benefit from reading it." - International Journal of Communication