Please join the Middle East Studies Program for a sponsored lecture with Naveed Mansoori on "The Mythos of the Earth: Suspended Realism and Visions of a Third World in Iran, 1941-53" at 4 p.m. today, Thursday, Nov. 7, at the CORD, room 349.

Mansoori is a research scholar at Princeton University and a political theorist interested in histories and theories of media and mediation, anti- and de-colonial history and theory, and critical theory, according to his profile page.

In 1941, the United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics occupied Iran and forced Reza Shah Pahlavi to abdicate the throne to his son. Because the Shah ruled with an iron fist, the ensuing period brought much-needed relief. That "interregnum" period ended in 1953, when the U.S. and UK engineered a coup against Muhammad Mussadeq, the prime minister who nationalized Iran's oil industry.

The year of relief, 1941, and its denouement, 1953, were the consequences of foreign intervention. With Iranians free to organize politically and publish their thoughts, a public sphere formed. The public sphere served as a site where Iranians circulated visions of national and international order. Mansoori's talk examines how these visions foregrounded a sensibility of suspended realism, namely, an orientation toward realpolitik by social actors materially incapable of worldmaking.

Please contact us at mest@uark.edu with any questions about the event. Food will be provided. We hope to see you there!