The King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies will host "Iran Protests: Roots, Prospects, and Historical Contingencies," a forum to examine the escalation of tension between Iran and the United States with an eye on the impact of this conflict on Iran's civil rights movement and regional politics. This forum will feature presentations and discussion by Iranian studies experts Shirin Saeidi and Mohammad Tabaar. The discussion will be moderated by Ted Swedenburg, professor of anthropology at the U of A.

The forum will take place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 23, in Gearhart Hall (GEAR) Room 26 on the University of Arkansas Fayetteville campus, and is free and open to the public.

Saeidi, assistant professor of political science at the University of Arkansas, will present "Exploring Social Mobilization Tactics in the Recent Protests." Her lecture will discuss the role of women in the recent uprisings, including the demonstrations in commemoration of Qasim Soleimani, recently assassinated Iranian commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force.

Tabaar, associate professor of international relations at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service, will discuss Iranian domestic politics, including recent riots and government crackdown, in the context of the larger Middle East politics and U.S.-Iranian relations. His lecture, "Iran Between Two Elections," will highlight the importance of the upcoming Iranian parliamentary and U.S. presidential elections in 2020 in navigating this relationship.

Saeidi earned a B.A. in government and politics from the University of Maryland, College Park and her Ph.D. in politics and international studies from Cambridge University, United Kingdom. Her research interests include hybrid regimes and citizenship formation in non-Western contexts. She has published numerous articles and book chapters that have appeared in Gender & History, Citizenship Studies, International Journal of Middle East Studies, International Studies Review, and The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences. Her book, Women and the Islamic Republic: How Gendered Citizenship Conditions the Iranian State, is forthcoming.

Tabaar earned a B.A. in social sciences from the University of Tehran, an M.A. in sociology from the New School for Social Research, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University. He teaches courses on US foreign policy in the Persian Gulf, religion and politics in Iran, and Middle East politics, and his research areas include international security and Middle East politics. He is the author of Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran (Columbia University Press 2018). His articles have appeared in Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Washington Post, and the New York Times.

This lecture is presented by the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies, the Department of Political Science, and the International and Global Studies Program at the University of Arkansas.

Learn more about the event on its Facebook page.