Bombs Will Never Liberate Iran: Persis Karim and Manijeh Moradian in Conversation

Today on Speaking Out of Place we have a special episode on the war in Iran. Scholars and activists Persis Karim and Manijeh Moradian discuss both the Iranian national issues involved as well as the regional context, connecting this war with the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s extensive wars elsewhere. At stake is both Iranian sovereignty and the calls for so-called “regime change.” We question the use of that term, delve into how the struggle for liberation in Iran rejects both the repressive Islamic state and the US/Israeli war machine.  Our discussion draws the frightening parallels between Iran’s stifling of dissent and imprisonment of political enemies and others with our own government’s.  Finally, we recall the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and build hope for international solidarity with groups working for liberation in Iran, Palestine, and elsewhere, and insist liberation will never be achieved by dropping bombs.                

Persis Karim teaches in the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature at San Francisco State University. She was the creator and director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies during its entire existence there. Since 1999, she has been actively working to expand the field of Iranian Diaspora Studies, beginning with the first anthology of Iranian writing she co-edited, A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-Americans. She is the editor of two other anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature: Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora, and Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian-American Writers. Before coming to San Francisco State, she was a professor of English & Comparative Literature at San Jose State where she was the founder and director of the Persian Studies program, and coordinator of the Middle East Studies Minor. She has published numerous articles about Iranian diaspora literature and culture for academic publications including Iranian Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asian, African and Middle East Studies (CSSAMES), and MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States. “The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life,” is her first film project (co-directed and co-produced with Soumyaa Behrens). She received her Master’s in Middle East Studies and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UT Austin. She is also a poet.

Manijeh Moradian is assistant professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States, was published by Duke University Press in December 2022.  She has published widely including in American Quarterly, Journal of Asian American Studies, Scholar & Feminist online, and Women’s Studies Quarterly. She is a founding member of the Raha Iranian Feminist Collective and on the editorial board of the Jadaliyya.com Iran Page.