Presented By: Global Islamic Studies Center
Qahwah & Authors Series: Feeding Iran: Shi`i Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic
Rose Wellman (author), Associate Professor of Anthropology and Associate Director of the Center for Arab American Studies, UM-Dearborn; and Hakem Al-Rustom, Professor of Anthropology, UM-Ann Arbor
Thursday, November 9th, 2023, 6:00 PM ET
Kitab Cafe & Bookstore, 2727 Holbrook Ave, Hamtramck, MI 48212
RSVP: https://bit.ly/RWFeedingIran
Join the University of Michigan Global Islamic Studies Center (GISC) and Rose Wellman, associate professor of Anthropology and associate director of the Center for Arab American Studies (UM-Dearborn), for a book discussion on Iran, food, family, and politics!
Professor Wellman will be speaking about her book Feeding Iran: Shi`i Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic (University of California Press 2021). UM-Ann Arbor professor of anthropology Hakem Al-Rustom, will be the discussant for this event. Refreshments will be provided!
About the book:
Since Iran's 1979 Revolution, the imperative to create and protect the inner purity of family and nation in the face of outside spiritual corruption has been a driving force in national politics. Through extensive fieldwork, Professor Rose Wellman examines how Basiji families, as members of Iran's voluntary paramilitary organization, encounter, enact, and challenge this imperative. Her ethnography reveals how families and state elites employ blood, food, and prayer in commemorations of martyrs in Islamic national rituals to create citizens who embody familial piety, purity, and closeness to God.
Feeding Iran: Shi`i Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic provides a rare and humanistic account of religion and family life in the post-revolutionary Islamic Republic that examines how home life and everyday piety are linked to state power.
About the author:
Rose Wellman is an anthropologist who specializes in Iran, the Middle East, and its diaspora, including Arab Detroit. Her book Feeding Iran: Shi’i Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic draws from ethnographic research in Iran between 2007 and 2010 to explore how everyday family life and piety are linked to state power. Wellman is currently conducting research with Arab Americans that focuses on Metro Detroit’s vibrant Iraqi community. She is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Arab American Narratives at ACCESS and a member of Healthy Dearborn’s research committee. Wellman’s courses at the University of Michigan-Dearborn cover subjects as diverse as the Middle East, religion, kinship and marriage, food, Islam, Islamophobia, anti-racism, globalization, and Arab America, emphasizing critical thinking and project-based learning in a globalized world. Wellman further draws from her research in Metro Detroit and beyond to provide students with real-world ethnographic research experiences and opportunities to engage the diverse community of Southeast Michigan. Between 2014 and 2017, Wellman was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University’s Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 2014 and her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in 2005.
About the commentator:
Hakem Al-Rustom is the Alex Manoogian Professor of Modern Armenian History and assistant professor of history and anthropology at the University of Michigan. His work interrogates ruins of undocumented histories, ethnographic silences, and memory as methods for historical ethnographies in the aftermath of violence. He is the co-editor of Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation (University of California Press 2010) and is currently finishing a book on the afterlives of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey (by Columbia University Press).
This event is brought to you by the Global Islamic Studies Center (GISC) at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
Want to hear about similar events from U-M Islamic Studies? Sign up for the GISC Newsletter here! We send out a monthly newsletter in collaboration with the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, and the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum.
Join our Email newsletter: https://myumi.ch/nbW83
Islamic Studies Minor: https://myumi.ch/R5YnQ
Email islamicstudies@umich.edu
Are you a student looking for funding?
Graduate Funding Opportunities: https://bit.ly/GISCGradFunding
Undergrad Funding Opportunities: https://bit.ly/GISCUndergradFunding
If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation to attend this event, please reach out to us at islamicstudies@umich.edu, we'd be happy to help. As you may know, some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange, so the sooner you can reach out to us the better.
Kitab Cafe & Bookstore, 2727 Holbrook Ave, Hamtramck, MI 48212
RSVP: https://bit.ly/RWFeedingIran
Join the University of Michigan Global Islamic Studies Center (GISC) and Rose Wellman, associate professor of Anthropology and associate director of the Center for Arab American Studies (UM-Dearborn), for a book discussion on Iran, food, family, and politics!
Professor Wellman will be speaking about her book Feeding Iran: Shi`i Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic (University of California Press 2021). UM-Ann Arbor professor of anthropology Hakem Al-Rustom, will be the discussant for this event. Refreshments will be provided!
About the book:
Since Iran's 1979 Revolution, the imperative to create and protect the inner purity of family and nation in the face of outside spiritual corruption has been a driving force in national politics. Through extensive fieldwork, Professor Rose Wellman examines how Basiji families, as members of Iran's voluntary paramilitary organization, encounter, enact, and challenge this imperative. Her ethnography reveals how families and state elites employ blood, food, and prayer in commemorations of martyrs in Islamic national rituals to create citizens who embody familial piety, purity, and closeness to God.
Feeding Iran: Shi`i Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic provides a rare and humanistic account of religion and family life in the post-revolutionary Islamic Republic that examines how home life and everyday piety are linked to state power.
About the author:
Rose Wellman is an anthropologist who specializes in Iran, the Middle East, and its diaspora, including Arab Detroit. Her book Feeding Iran: Shi’i Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic draws from ethnographic research in Iran between 2007 and 2010 to explore how everyday family life and piety are linked to state power. Wellman is currently conducting research with Arab Americans that focuses on Metro Detroit’s vibrant Iraqi community. She is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Arab American Narratives at ACCESS and a member of Healthy Dearborn’s research committee. Wellman’s courses at the University of Michigan-Dearborn cover subjects as diverse as the Middle East, religion, kinship and marriage, food, Islam, Islamophobia, anti-racism, globalization, and Arab America, emphasizing critical thinking and project-based learning in a globalized world. Wellman further draws from her research in Metro Detroit and beyond to provide students with real-world ethnographic research experiences and opportunities to engage the diverse community of Southeast Michigan. Between 2014 and 2017, Wellman was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University’s Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 2014 and her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in 2005.
About the commentator:
Hakem Al-Rustom is the Alex Manoogian Professor of Modern Armenian History and assistant professor of history and anthropology at the University of Michigan. His work interrogates ruins of undocumented histories, ethnographic silences, and memory as methods for historical ethnographies in the aftermath of violence. He is the co-editor of Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation (University of California Press 2010) and is currently finishing a book on the afterlives of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey (by Columbia University Press).
This event is brought to you by the Global Islamic Studies Center (GISC) at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
Want to hear about similar events from U-M Islamic Studies? Sign up for the GISC Newsletter here! We send out a monthly newsletter in collaboration with the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, and the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum.
Join our Email newsletter: https://myumi.ch/nbW83
Islamic Studies Minor: https://myumi.ch/R5YnQ
Email islamicstudies@umich.edu
Are you a student looking for funding?
Graduate Funding Opportunities: https://bit.ly/GISCGradFunding
Undergrad Funding Opportunities: https://bit.ly/GISCUndergradFunding
If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation to attend this event, please reach out to us at islamicstudies@umich.edu, we'd be happy to help. As you may know, some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange, so the sooner you can reach out to us the better.
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