⚠️ Sexual misconduct allegations in the International History Department at LSE
Please read and share this important article. Women have been silenced for far too long by an institution that should protect them.
LSE tried to shut down
@lse_encampment
on false fire safety claims carried out by a private consultant. Amazing comrades from
@fbunational
came to carry out an assessment for the occupation, and LSE refused to let them in. 1/2
I wrote about the legacy of the Iranian intervention in Oman. Pleased to share part of my PhD research to a wider audience.
Their ‘civil war’ edit is a problem as it erases coloniality. The Dhofar war was one of the last colonial wars. (Not my headline!)
But LSE couldn’t refuse a London Fire Brigade officer who carried out a fire safety check. It passed with no concerns. Shame on LSE for their lies and attempts to use false fire safety concerns as a bargaining chip against students. Read the full statement
@lse_encampment
2/2
Summer 1973, East Germany. Comrades Angela Davis and Yasser Arafat met at the Tenth World Festival of Youth and Students alongside revolutionaries from across the world, under the slogan, ‘for anti-imperialist solidarity, peace and friendship!’ /1
Our book, She Who Struggles: Revolutionary Women Who Shaped The World, co-edited with
@sorchathomson
, is out in less than a month with
@PlutoPress
!
Available for pre-order here and in bookstores online:
Today is publication day for She Who Struggles (
@plutopress
), co-edited with
@sorchathomson
. We are so excited to see it in the world and grateful for all the support and kind words so far. 🥳
You can order a copy here, or on bookstores online:
It’s application season and I will flag a constant grievance. The overwhelming majority of my poc counterparts in academia come from middle/upper class positions - class is completely overlooked because racial ‘diversity’ is such an easy marker for institutions.
“five formal complaints and nine informal allegations against the accused individual were brought to the attention of LSE.”
The mishandling was devastating. The silencing devastating. And multiple women including Prof
@TaylorCSherman
have resigned from the dept as a result.
The amazing launch of Uncomfortable Truths
@bristolmuseum
, a decolonisation project about the honest and painful history of the museum and its objects.
#museumtruths
Huge huge support for
@LSEforPalestine
students who have been smeared by the entire British political class these past few days for rightfully demonstrating on campus. Solidarity! Assembly on Thursday.
🚨 SOLIDARITY ASSEMBLY IN SUPPORT OF STUDENTS FROM
@LSEforPalestine
AND THE LSE PALESTINE SOCIETY 🚨
Thursday, 18 November, 12 noon, in front of LSE Library👇 co-organised by LSE staff and Decolonising LSE
i’ve spent the whole day wearing a beautiful dress my best friend sent me in the post. she was so confused when i sent a photo - this one wasn’t her gift. i’ve been wearing someone else’s (VERY expensive) dress. ! wrong road.
how is your saturday going
Finally! I’m going to be a visiting student researcher at UC Berkeley this term. After a long 18 months. I’m so excited but I’m struggling to find housing. Can anyone share any advice/websites/wealthy Californian Iranians with a spare room to rent for 2 months? 🙃🙃🙃
Heiny Srour's film "The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived" (1974) on the anti-colonial struggle of the Dhofar revolution is available until 14 Jan on BWF Caravan, don't miss it! Amazing archival footage and feminist storytelling. She has a Q&A on 14 Jan too -
Still stunned by scholars working on the ‘Middle East’, objectifying and studying our people, learning our languages (or even not), theorising aplenty and building entire successful careers, and silently refusing to take a stand. A farce.
my favourite of
#IranianCulturalSites
is Darband. no visit to Iran is complete without an early friday morning hike & breakfast at elevation. lovers, poets, writers, and thinkers have long trailed this path.
it’s where we hear the whispers of maman’s love stories from her youth
I’m very excited to share this conversation with Moshtari Hilal, visual artist and researcher.
We talked about locating Afghanistan in the Middle East, subjectivity, the family archive, beauty, black body hair, big noses, feminism, racism & more.
☕️ On this week's episode of
#InstantCoffee
, Marral Shamshiri-Fard (
@sham_marral
) speaks to visual artist Moshtari Hilal about locating Afghanistan in the 'Middle East'. Listen here!
I loved reading this beautiful review of Iranian cookbooks, which so cleverly weaves family history, poetics, diaspora and regional politics, and so much more.
@LalehKhalili
1. Can you imagine an anti-racist world? Speaking to white and brown people/people of colour (POC) and folks doing PR in institutions. In solidarity with the black community and everyone grieving, fighting, dreaming. Now that you’ve circulated squares on social media, what next?
My grandma has learnt how to send voice notes!! 🥺 So happy. We bought her first smartphone together in December 2017, in Kourosh mall Tehran. She’d wanted one for ages but her children were convinced she wouldn’t know how to use it, it would be a hassle. She is semi “literate”.
'The Feminist Revolution is Fearless'
Head to the Silver blog for Marral Shamshiri's (
@sham_marral
) powerful reflections on the Iranian uprising. She connects this to the Iranian feminist movement in 1979 and calls for international feminist solidarity
I cringe when I look at my teen bookshelf at home and see Dawkins, Hitchens et al there. Naive 17 year old me genuinely thought being a New Atheist contrarian was some kind of liberating intellectualism. It was misguided, and remains shrouded in racism
It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice. Of course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology.
‘Decolonisation’ discourse in the academy and popular culture is sanitised of political violence because it is unpalatable to the white Western world. And yet this resistance is central to the history (and present) of liberation struggles, independence, decolonisation etc.
I will miss this solitude and I will miss my comrades and sisters here. I will miss the sun. Two months felt like a second. But I miss my London people!!!
like Che, Fidel, Lumumba, and Cabral, was a revered figure within the movement for Black liberation. This was a time when communist internationalism—in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the Caribbean—was a powerful force.’ (Davis 2017) /5
Panels in Arabic, English, and Farsi will address the history, present, and future of joint struggles between Black and non-Black South West Asian and North African communities and ...
Amazing recording
Pres LBJ: “I’m very concerned that the Afro-Asian conference in Algiers next month [1965] will degenerate...it’ll be an anti-US operation unless some responsible delegation like Iran stands up”
Shah: “Yes, we shall do our duty and we are grateful to you...”
While working on a new piece, I found this amazing recording of a May 1965 phone call btwn President Johnson and the Shah of Iran. The Shah had just arrived NY after a LATAM trip. A month earlier he survived an assassination attempt in his marble palace
cancelled our class on caribbean migration history today in solidarity with the Palestinian general strike and instead we learned about the Palestinian freedom struggle.
#freepalestine
#sheikhjarrah
What's on next week as part of our strike teach-outs? A lot. Tomorrow (Monday) is already full of talks, art, readings, and performance - swipe for details.
Tell your friends, colleagues and classmates.
Further daily schedules to follow separately.
#OneOfUsAllOfUs
#UCUstrike
Pleased to be appointed Co-President of the Graduate Section of BRISMES!! First of all... this is open to all Middle East related PhDs to apply if they defended their thesis in 2019. Please share. Deadline 31 Jan
Did you successfully defend your
#PhD
thesis in 2019 on a topic related to the
#MiddleEast
? If so, you've got two weeks left to apply for the 2020 Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize. All the details on how to apply are here:
#phdlife
#phdchat
Love to be that killjoy especially when the amnesia is hitting deep, can we have a reversal of drone policy and bombing of the Muslim-majority world too, please? The remote-controlled killing that the Obama-Biden administration normalised. Civilians are still mourning their dead.
In Oxford elitism was overwhelming. In London it’s ‘diverse!’ so a different kind of overwhelming. We might look the same but fam we have not had the same experiences. Would love to see ppl talk about class in the same way we talk about race, esp at its intersections.
The transnational archive of revolution is scattered and fragmented. Few Iranians joined the Dhufar revolution in Oman, and even fewer traces remain, including the Afraz memoirs. As Naghmeh Sohrabi argues, writing the "small" histories matter
@jadaliyya
To be sure:
- Don't need a PhD in Middle East history to support the Palestinian freedom struggle
- We will support however Palestinians choose to resist under occupation
- The scale this time is huge
- The Hamas started it narrative is false social media is witness
#SheikhJarrah
Textbook Orientalism. The call for ‘respectful’ replies really gets me - civilised people essentialising a whole society as rotten in respectful language is ok apparently. No, it’s dehumanising. And we know where that takes us. Concerning from an esteemed analyst.
#NoWarWithIran
Grandad was an Azeri bricklayer in Tehran in the 50s. Illiterate but attended uni demonstrations. He met Hasan Shamshiri (famous kebab guy & advisor to Mossadeq) who’d serve free kebab at protests! Long story but, our Azeri family name changed to Shamshiri with the OG’s blessing
unfortunately we had to postpone our conference, but hopefully we look forward to rescheduling soon.
social distancing will save lives - this is not overreacting, it is an ethical responsibility to protect the most vulnerable
In light of recent updates on
#Covid_19
, we have made the unfortunate yet necessary decision to postpone our conference until further notice. The health and safety of our presenters and attendees is our primary concern. It is our belief that we will not be able to host this 1/2
Enjoyed this brilliant episode on teaching the history of British Empire thanks
@mollyravery
. We are using it as a resource for our
#HY113
class 'From Empire to Independence'.
@GKBhambra
makes the most articulate case for an honest understanding of Empire
The Middle East c.1960-1980
Global and Transnational Perspectives Webinar Series
(Supported by Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute)
Sessions will be held online from 17.00 UK time
every Monday in Michaelmas term
For more information visit below⬇️
the discomfort i see my friends have at the prospect of self-isolation reminds me of that anxiety in the first 2 months of the phd when you realise you’ve chosen a distant, unorthodox way of life.
(once you get used to it, you will realise it is actually *great*)
#COVID2019
Last weekend I walked into Revolution Books in Berkeley looking for a book on local radical history. I walked out with 20 items! All published by the Foreign Languages Press in Beijing between 60s and early 70s. One Arabic translation - many Farsi. And a little (1972) red book📕
When women are brave enough to put forward their experiences of sexual harassment and assault, I will always believe them. We must. Love and solidarity and support to all affected in any way.
93% voted in favour of this. A monumental result. When Israeli academic institutions function in a system that denies Palestinians their basic rights, academic boycott is a necessity.
On December 2, 2021, MESA members attending the Annual Meeting voted to advance a BDS resolution to a full-membership vote in early 2022. For more details:
please sign and share. we call on LSE to protect all students and all workers, both academic and non-academic by committing to the
#CoronaContract
#LSEcoronacontract
read here: sign here:
Today, we launch the LSE Covid Solidarity Campaign and invite you to sign our petition in solidarity with all students and all workers, both academic and non-academic across the LSE community. Find out more:
#LSECoronaContract
#LSECovidSolidarity
(1/2)
I find myself at the awkward juncture of millennial twitter and professional/academic twitter, unable, or rather, unwilling, to situate myself fully in either.
"Thinking about publishing your first academic article or book?"💡Our next BRISMES Graduate Zoom event is taking place on 22 Feb, 14.00-15.30 GMT with Stephanie Cronin
@NadjeAlAli
@MariaSoleMarsh
@SharriPlonski
@lewiseturner
.
Open to all, register here:
Proud of my sister for this brilliant interview. She injects life into every project she touches! Hear her talk about The Iranian Vegan, combining her philosophy of compassion, food history, questions around refuge and identity, and how her recipes are received in diaspora v Iran
On episode 6 of
#InstantCoffee
, we speak with Mana Shamshiri, creator of 'The Iranian Vegan'. We explore the origins of veganism, it's rise amongst youth in Iran, as well as cooking in the diaspora, with analysis from
@GTazmini
and Alireza Sedighi.
Some of the formally uneducated semi/illiterate members of my family live and understand “theory” better than those who are formally educated. Many of my first learnings were through them.
Ranciere’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster is the pedagogical text I always go back to on this
Academics think anyone who isn’t in academia couldn’t possibly be autodidacts (self taught) and instead assume we just lead with emotions and lived experience. Surprise, surprise, people study theory and have discourse outside the ivory tower.
our family tradition is always Chaharshanbe Suri at my ameh’s house.
this year a few of us aren’t attending, including my grandparents - they are immunocompromised and already heavily reliant on the NHS at the moment.
reminiscing about last year ♥️🔥
Essential reads to understand the (anti)colonial history:
Abdel Razzaq Takriti’s ‘Monsoon Revolution’
@abedtakriti
and Fred Halliday’s ‘Arabia without Sultans’
When this PhD is done I think I’d like to get a job in a former polytechnic/post-92 tbh because I so deeply do not subscribe to the idea that elite institutions teach the most brilliant students. 95% are there because of their class, family and educational backgrounds. 🤡
I’m very excited to share this call for papers! Please circulate with your networks
Conference - 5 March 2021 at
@StAntsCollege
The Middle East c.1960-1980 - Global and Transnational Perspectives.
My personal spells of anti-intellectualism almost always coincide with spending more time around my parents. Years into a PhD my mum will still send me job posts for social justice/human rights jobs and actually say ‘But Marral, aren’t you wasting time’ 🥲
Sparing a thought for all the women/women of colour faculty and graduate students whose invisibilised labour on liberation and equality issues in the workplace is time-consuming emotional, intellectual, and administrative work that the institution will never recognise.
what i haven’t seen reported: yesterday black trans lives matter x pride and justice for shukri abdi came together. the two protests with different locations mixed in parliament square, as police had closed off downing street and surrounding areas (somewhat ironic). then in
Powerful statement from
@LSEforPalestine
reminding us to not be distracted from the reasons for protest - the ongoing Palestinian freedom struggle against settler-colonialism and apartheid, and the university’s complicity in upholding and facilitating systemic violence.
📽️WATCH: Hear from Sorcha from
@PscYouth
on why she's joining the Student Demo for Palestine in London on Friday 9th July ✊
Join other students and young people to march against UK universities complicity in Israeli apartheid.
👉More:
The first of three mentoring events we’ve jointly organised
@OfficialBrismes
with
@CBRL_news
is taking place on 14 October - link below.
‘Applying for Funding and Securing a Post-Doc’ with speakers: Charles Tripp, Graeme Barker, Moushira Elgeziri,
@AshjanAjour
,
@sertacsehlikogl
We are delighted to announce an online event for BRISMES and
@CBRL_news
members:
'BRISMES – CBRL mentoring event: Applying for Funding and Securing a Post-doc' on 13 October 2021 - 16.00 to 17.30 GMT.
Sign up here:
Sharing our exciting programme for the LSE History Graduate Conference
@lsehistory_conf
with the
@UCLHistory
Centre for Transnational History. March 19th.
Keynotes from Dr
@lottelydia
and Prof Balachandran. Sign up below!
Thanks for this thread Peyman. I’m stunned at the regurgitated point in the press about Soleimani’s responsibility for the death of 100s of US soldiers in Iraq. Not an inch of consideration for the *1.2 million* people killed in Iraq from an illegal US-led war.
I am using the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive (UAE and UK National Archives collab) for the first time. Amazing resource. Noticing the extensive use of 'Arabian Gulf', in comparison to the Qatar Digital Library which prefers 'Gulf' /1
Returning from several months of leave to an institution that is miserably failing and silencing women and students…
Best things about time off: allotment life! After a 3.5yr waiting list. Kittens 🥹. And the 5th and best football team I’ve played for Baesianz FC ❤️🔥
@francesweetman
@RozDeKett
@helenmj7
such a simplistic, reductive argument. I could say Israel’s aim is to kill Palestinians. Of course it does kill on a terrifying scale, but that aim is not true (although its foreign policy doctrine has been territorial expansion which has meant mass killing of Palestinians)
Excited to have put this mentoring event together with
@KasmSaeb
for students working on topics relating to the Middle East.
Open to non-BRISMES members too!
Register by 12 June - places are limited.
We are happy to announce our speakers for the BRISMES Student Mentoring Event Zoom Webinar:
Laleh Khalili, Rafeef Ziadah, Sarah Irving, Feras Alkabani, Giulia Guariento
Tues 16 June 1.30-3pm BST
All welcome!
Please register in advance by 5pm 12 June BST
With the opening of the legendary sealed letter written by Sultan Qaboos, Haitham bin Tariq Al Said is named as the new sultan of
#Oman
. Qaboos had been sick for many years, and there was speculation in recent years over the contents of this letter.
i'm finally a supporter of
@wikipedia
. grateful for the 1000s of hours I have spent and will spend on this precious resource. non-profit, advert-free, democratised knowledge.
(also google jimmy wales net worth and then google zuckerb)
quarantine appreciation post. the best thing about lockdown is being number 1 taster in lucien’s test kitchen and having lunch brought up to me like this 😭 (it’s green eggs and i honestly have no idea what that means). basil?
#lockdownuk
#Covid_19
Everyone. In my school year is getting engaged. Is this what entering 28 feels like?! We lost our prime mid twenties to Covid and I’m just not that ready for this (..posts on twitter and not instagram😂🧿)
Shoutout to my phenomenal dad who picks me up at 10.45 every Saturday morning after my arduous journey from South to NW London armed with a packed lunch, to drop me off at Iranian school so that I don’t have to catch a bus after the tube. Most committed man to all my life choices
Exciting plenary today at 1pm 'Writing within and beyond academia' at the BRISMES conf
@OfficialBrismes
@lucy_garbett
and I have organised for students and ECRs.
The final part of the meeting will also be an opportunity for members to share thoughts & ideas for the grad section.
@francesweetman
@RozDeKett
@helenmj7
‘history’ is a bit of a stretch there. perhaps if people spent more time understanding his history of anti-racism and resistance politics rather than political point scoring, we’d be in a much better place.
Join us to hear from
@Arike_Oke
Thursday 12 November on ‘The Civic Archivist’ and the role of archives in recording times of unrest and uncertainty. Part of
#LSESocialRevolutions
. Rescheduled from March:
honestly thanks to
@BernieSanders
(and
@jeremycorbyn
) for breathing new life and energy to the left and to radical progressive politics. they’ve carved impossible space in mainstream politics with imagination and conviction from the margins
a makeshift balcony thanks to our roofers delaying the fix..
trying to read after a couple weeks of mental block and incapacity, felt urged to pick up Tony Benn’s biography. my aunt gave it to me with a certain kind of excitement when
@jeremycorbyn
became leader of the party.