Today | Longtime UC Berkeley instructor of Persian language, literature, and Iranian cinema |
Expertise | Persian literature, Iranian cinema, Iranian history, ethnic and religious minorities in Iran |
Speaks to | Universities, film audiences, adult learners, and community groups |
Education | Ph.D., UC Berkeley |
Languages | Lectures in English and Persian |
Dr. Jaleh Pirnazar is a scholar of Persian language, literature, and Iranian cinema who has taught in the Near Eastern Studies department at UC Berkeley since 1980. UC Berkeley's Iranian studies program credits her with being, for more than three decades, the principal force in drawing generations of students to study Persian at every level. She earned her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley with a dissertation on Iran's political parties and organizations in the first half of the twentieth century.
Her research covers Iranian history and literature, the teaching of Persian to Iranian Americans, Iranian cinema, and ethnic and religious minorities in Iran. She has published and presented her work in both Persian and English, including studies of how Iranian Jews appear in modern Persian writing and of Iranian Jews, national identity, and journalism from 1915 to 1979. Her Berkeley course Film and Fiction of Iran introduces students to modern Iranian short stories and films.
Dr. Pirnazar has lectured widely to scholarly and public audiences, including a 2007 Berkeley lecture in Persian on the image of the Jew in Persian literature and a 2014 talk on the Jews of Iran for the Roshan Institute lecture series at San Jose State University. For JIMENA, she led a film discussion in 2016 and spoke at Lehrhaus Judaica in 2017, in Berkeley in 2018, and at a 2018 program on the film Septembers of Shiraz.
The principal force in attracting generations of students to Berkeley
UC Berkeley Iranian Studies, on her decades of teaching Persian
Speaking Topics
What Dr. Pirnazar talks about
1. The Image of the Jew in Persian Literature
How Jewish characters have been portrayed by modern Iranian writers.
2. Jews of Iran
Iranian Jewish history, national identity, and community life in the twentieth century.
3. Film and Fiction of Iran
Major themes in modern Iranian cinema and short stories, with English subtitled films.
4. Religious Minorities in Iran
The experiences of Jews and other minority communities in modern Iranian history.
5. Iranian Jewish Women's Voices
New memoirs and novels by Iranian Jewish women.
Select Talks
Selected talks and appearances
2018 | JIMENA: Septembers of Shiraz film program (April); JIMENA program in Berkeley (March) |
2017 | Lehrhaus Judaica, with JIMENA (February) |
2016 | JIMENA film discussion (October) |
2014 | Association for Iranian Studies conference, Montreal: panels on Persian heritage language learning and Persian language teaching curriculum (August 8); Roshan Institute Lecture Series, San Jose State University: Jews of Iran (spring) |
2010 | Association for Iranian Studies, Eighth Biennial Iranian Studies Conference: Memoirs and Novels by Iranian Jewish Women, New Voices, in the panel Mediums of Storytelling, Narratives of 20th Century Iranian Jews (May 28) |
2007 | Berkeley lecture in Persian: The Image of the Jew in Persian Literature, 110 Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley (October 21) |
These are a selection of Dr. Pirnazar’s talks. Dr. Pirnazar has given many more, at universities, academic conferences, and Jewish community programs in the Bay Area and beyond.
Publications and Media
Read, watch, and listen
Video
The Image of the Jew in Persian Literature
Her October 2007 lecture in Persian, presented in Berkeley. View the lecture page
Affiliations
Organizations
- UC Berkeley, Department of Near Eastern Studies
- JIMENA Speakers Bureau
Book Dr. Pirnazar
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