Performing Trans in Post-Revolutionary Iran: Gender Transitions in Islamic Law,Theatre, and Film

In the wake of a string of sensationalist documentaries about transsexuality in Iran, Iranian theatre and film artists began crafting groundbreaking trans performances to educate audiences and depict characters living non-heteronormative lives without the translating influence of queer theory or identity politics. Investigating transsexual bodies as assembled by jurists in Iranian Shi?a jurisprudence and by artists on stage and screen reveals the ways in which the transsexual body is constructed in Islamic legal discourse and represented in narrative and bodily form in the public imaginary in Iran. Representations of transsexuality in theatre and film highlight the role of the arts as a vehicle for social change, communal recognition, and self-cognition. In particular, performances of female-to-male gender transitions in theatre and film have expanded the boundaries of how gender presentation is translated onto Iranian stages, into Tehran coffeehouses, and onto global screens. These trans performances usher Iranian spectators into new forms of viewership and artistic consumption in their attempt to creatively represent transsexual bodies and narratives to increase tolerance towards transsexuals; further, they have ignited a conversation among artists and activists about the assemblage of transsexual bodies in artistic productions and the most effective narrative and emotional forms of catharsis to inspire change.     

Visual representations of Iranian transgenders

Transsexuality in Iran has gained much attention and media coverage in the past few years, particularly in its questionable depiction as a permitted loophole for homosexuality, which is prohibited under Iran's Islamic-inspired legal system. Of course, attention in the West is also encouraged by the “shock” that sex change is available in Iran, a country that Western media and society delights in portraying as monolithically repressive. As a result, Iranian filmmakers inevitably have their own agendas, which are unsurprisingly brought into the film making process—from a desire to sell a product that will appeal to the Western market, to films that endorse specific socio-political agendas. This paper is an attempt to situate sex change and representations of sex change in Iran within a wider theoretical framework than the frequently reiterated conflation with homosexuality, and to open and engage with a wider debate concerning transsexuality in Iran, as well as to specifically analyze the representation of transexuality, in view of its current prominent presence in media.     

Transnational ways of seeing: sexual and national belonging in Hedwig and the Angry Inch

I argue that transnational ways of seeing help us apprehend the histories of globalization, immigration and imperialism that frame and make legible cultural productions. Focusing on John Cameron Mitchell's 2001 film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which has been almost universally received as being about transsexuality, this essay argues that the film is equally about transnationality and specifically about how queer identifications and identities are produced in relation to the nation-state. Hedwig explores the limits of national belonging and the pleasures of US popular culture through the lens of sexual and gender identity, with the ambiguity of the Hedwig's body embodying confusion about legal, political and cultural citizenship. The film identifies and critiques the violences of heteronormative national belonging, yet by reading Hedwig alongside the political and legal histories that make its narrative legible, it becomes apparent that the film's popular reception frequently erases the transnational and imperial histories that undergird and produce sexual identities and identification. I argue that cultural practices do not simply reflect national or queer identifications but also produce them. The fissures between the cultural work of the film itself and of its circulation illustrate how despite the mutual imbrication of sexuality and nationality, transsexuality is sometimes more readily apprehended than is transnationality.     

Connection between the Legal Knowledge and Social Background of Sports Coaches at Iranian Universities

This study investigates university coaches' knowledge about their legal duties toward their athletes, as well as the connection between the level of their legal knowledge and their educational, social and economic background. The results are presented according to three major dimensions: deficiencies in the coaches' training system, in their knowledge concerning their legal responsibility and the coaches' social recognition regarding their profession. The findings indicate that the coaches' training in Iran has a lot of weaknesses, including the neglect of legal issues, the consequence of which is that the Iranian university coaches do not have sufficient knowledge about the legal issues in general and they are not aware of their duty toward their athletes in particular. In Iran coaching is not considered as a prestigious occupation; in terms of social status coaches belong to the lower middle class.     

Reflections on the History and Historians of the black woman’s role in the community of slaves: enslaved women and intimate partner sexual violence

Taking as points of inspiration Peter Parish’s 1989 book, Slavery: History and Historians, and Angela Davis’s seminal 1971 article, “Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves,” this probes both historiographically and methodologically some of the challenges faced by historians writing about the lives of enslaved women through a case study of intimate partner violence among enslaved people in the antebellum South. Because rape and sexual assault have been defined in the past as non-consensual sexual acts supported by surviving legal evidence (generally testimony from court trials), it is hard for historians to research rape and sexual violence under slavery (especially marital rape) as there was no legal standing for the rape of enslaved women or the rape of any woman within marriage. This article suggests enslaved women recognized that black men could both be perpetrators of sexual violence and simultaneously be victims of the system of slavery. It also argues women stoically tolerated being forced into intimate relationships, sometimes even staying with “husbands” imposed upon them after emancipation.     

The Haves and the Have Nots: A Historical Study of Disability in Modern Iran

This essay provides a historical analysis of Iranian experiences with disability. I will begin by reviewing the literary application of the term in various contexts. Next, I will examine the social milieux in which local observers, medical professionals, and policy makers talked about and treated disability. As state-run institutions emerged to address disability needs, health professionals often drew a distinction between physical disability and intellectual or psychological disability, raising ethical and legal questions about the status of the disabled in modern Iranian society. Finally, an attempt will be made to situate disability politics in contemporary Iran, where the disabled population has increased significantly as a consequence of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88). Although this paper concentrates on Iranian experiences with disability, comparisons can be drawn with other Islamic societies.     

On the invisibility of the emasculated (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Castrating a male by destroying his testicles is a practice that most people assume ended a century or so ago with the collapse of the Chinese and Ottoman Empires and the death of the last castrato in the Vatican choir. However, because advanced prostate cancer is treated by either chemical or surgical castration, there are probably more castrated men alive today than ever before in history. Castration is also used in the western world as either a step in the sexual reassignment of male to female (MtF) transsexuals or rarely to treat recidivist sexual predators. In addition, some men desire emasculation who are neither cancer patients, MtF transsexuals, nor sexual predators. In this essay I argue that the public association of castration with sexual predators and deviant behaviour is so great that men, who require it as a medical treatment for cancer or who seek it for other reasons typically hide from public view. One consequence of the shame associated with castration is that those, who desire emasculation but do not have a diagnosis of cancer, too often subject themselves to risky and illegal amateur surgeries outside the medical system. I argue that for whatever reason a male seeks castration, the overall invisibility of the emasculated in modern society is a disservice. It minimizes the public's understanding of the magnitude of the impact of castration on cancer patients and it inhibits those in need of medical treatment from getting it in an appropriate and timely fashion.     

Sex estimation using cervical dental measurements in an archaeological population from Iran

Sex estimation of skeletal remains is one of the major components of forensic identification of unknown individuals. Teeth are a potential source of information on sex and are often recovered in archaeological or forensic contexts due to their post-mortem longevity. Currently, there is limited data on dental sexual dimorphism of archaeological populations from Iran. This paper represents the first study to provide a dental sex estimation method for Iron Age populations. The current study was conducted on the skeletal remains of 143 adults from two Iron Age populations in close temporal and geographic proximity in the Solduz Valley (West Azerbaijan Province of Iran). Mesiodistal and buccolingual cervical measurements of 1334 maxillary and mandibular teeth were used to investigate the degree of sexual dimorphism in permanent dentition and to assess their applicability in sex estimation. Data was analysed using discriminant function analysis (SPSS 23), and posterior probabilities were calculated for all produced formulae. The results showed that incisors and canines were the most sexually dimorphic teeth, providing percentages of correct sex classification between 86.4 and 100 % depending on the measurement used. The combination of canines and other teeth improved significantly the level of correct sex classification. The highest percentages of sex classification were obtained by the combination of canines and incisors (100 %) and canines and molars (92.3 %). The present study provided the first reference standards for sex estimation using odontometric data in an Iranian archaeological population. Cervical measurements were found to be of value for sex assessment, and the method presented here can be a useful tool for establishing accurate demographic data from skeletal remains of the Iron Age from Iran.     

Re-Ghettoization: Armenian Christian Neighborhoods in Multicultural Tehran

This paper incorporates a study of “re-ghettoization” among the Armenian Christians of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It focuses on how legal marginalization has led to the emergence of an entirely separate existence from the Muslim majority in Tehran among Armenians born after the revolution. By focusing on the spatial and social divisions of the hayashatner (Armenian neighborhoods) and the “social” ghetto of the Ararat Compound, this article addresses the question: what are the social implications for religious discrimination in the Muslim Middle East? This paper is based on three extensive blocks of fieldwork carried out in Iran from 2010 to 2015.     

Technical Studies on the Bronze Age Metal Artefacts from the Graveyard of Deh Dumen,South‐Western Iran (Third Millennium BC)

During the excavations of the graveyard at the site of Deh Dumen in south‐western Iran, 15 graves from the Early/Middle Bronze Age were uncovered that contained a variety of metallic artefacts. This paper reports on the analysis of nine metal artefacts, including eight broken vessels and a decorative strip that covered the handle of a dagger. The ICP–MS results showed that the bodies of the vessels are made of tin bronze alloy with variable amounts of tin, while the internal piece of the base of one vessel is made from an arsenical copper alloy. Further, the metallic strip is a thin sheet manufactured with partially pure silver. Microanalytical and microstructural information yielded by SEM–EDS revealed elongated Cu–S inclusions and lead globules as various phases formed in bronze solid solution. This study presents some information about the transition from arsenical copper to bronze metallurgy in the third millennium bc in south‐western Iran.     

Post‐Conflict Ambon: Forced Migration and the Ethno‐Territorial Effects of Customary Tenure

In post‐conflict contexts characterized by large‐scale migration and increasing levels of legal pluralism, customary land tenure risks being deployed as a tool of ethno‐territorialization in which displaced communities are denied return and secure land rights. This thesis will be illustrated through a case study of the Indonesian island of Ambon where a recognition of customary tenure — also called adat — was initiated in 2005 at the end of a high‐intensity conflict between Christians and Muslims. Although a system of land tenure providing multiple forms of social security for the indigenous in‐group, adat in Ambon also constitutes an arena of power in which populations considered as non‐indigenous to a fixed historical territory are pushed into an inferior legal position. The legal registration of customary tenure therefore tends to be deployed to settle long‐standing land contests with a growing migrant community, hereby legally enforcing some of the forced expulsions that were brought about by the recent communal violence.     

2011 Cultural heritage legal summary

Abstract

This article summarizes the legal developments during 2011 that affect archaeological heritage. Among the more significant developments were advances in and challenges to the use of international law in deterring the trade in undocumented antiquities and questions of whether artifacts on loan to U.S. institutions from Iran could be used to satisfy judgments against Iran awarded to victims of terrorist bombings. Finally, the article presents a preliminary assessment of the impact of the "Arab Spring" conflicts on cultural heritage preservation.     

Hikma muta‘aliya in Qajar Iran: Locating the Life and Work of Mulla Hadi Sabzawari (d. 1289/1873)

The Qajar period witnessed a revival of traditional Islamic philosophy based on the philosophical method of the Safavid sage Mulla Sadra Shirazi. This was philosophy as a way of life, an ethical commitment born of a method that combined both rational discourse and mystical intuition, deployed to defend the intellectual and cultural norms of the old learning against the new European inspired centers in Qajar Iran. A prominent figure in this process of revival was Mulla Hadi Sabzavari, who trained in the seminaries of Mashhad and Isfahan and became the most famous teacher of the works of Mulla Sadra and of philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century. This paper examines his life and intellectual and pedagogical contribution, and traces some lines of his impact on seminarian philosophy into the twentieth century through the many students who came to study with him in his hometown, including his influence on modern trends within Shi‘i jurisprudence and legal theory.     

Women’s education,time use and marriage in Iran

In many parts of the world, higher education has increased female chances of paid work and reduced the economic benefits of marriage. In Iran, however, female labour force participation has remained in low rates despite considerable improvements in female education. In the absence of direct economic benefits of education for women, this paper uses data from the 2009 Time Use Survey, representing urban areas of Iran, to explore another pathway of the impact of education on transition to marriage. It is postulated that female education can lead to later marriage by changing women’s role priorities, at least in two ways. While enrolment in education is time-consuming and incompatible with requirements of marital life, higher education can increase the chances and desire for engagement in alternatives to the roles related to marriage. The findings provide partial support for both explanations. These findings not only deepen our understanding about differentials in the time use and the potential pathway of the impact of female education on marriage, but also provide important information for policy makers who are concerned with marital and fertility behaviours of the large cohort of young educated women in Iran.     

Shi‘ite Women's Seminaries (howzeh-ye ‘elmiyyeh-ye khahran) in Iran: Possibilities and Limitations

The establishment of Jami‘at al-Zahra, the first official female seminary in post-revolutionary Iran, opened new possibilities for women to enter the male-dominated clerical hierarchy. The rapid growth of female seminaries increased the presence of seminary-educated women in the official religious sphere. However, as opposed to the male seminaries whose dominant role is to train mojtaheds who can issue a competent legal opinion, the primary role of female seminaries is to train educators and propagandists. Drawing on interviews, documents issued by seminaries and secondary sources, this paper concludes that in spite of the rapid growth of female seminaries, very few women reach the rank of a mojtahed, and thus, in no way weaken the male-centric seminary system in contemporary Iran.     

What about Translation? Beyond “Persianization” as the Language Policy in Iran

Against the background of language policy research on Iran, and drawing on insights from recent scholarship on the role of translation in language policy, this article calls into question the claim that “Persianization” of non-Persian peoples is the main element of language policy in Iran. In so doing, the article examines closely the role of translation as enacted in two legal instruments: the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Law of Parliamentary Elections. The study illustrates that although official communication between Iranian authorities and citizens is a prototypical example of monolingualism and non-translation, voluntary translation happens between Persian and non-Persian speaking individuals, acting as a viable and cost-effective bottom-up alternative for the inclusion of non-Persian speaking peoples, far more effective than an impractical, top-down language policy reform implicitly found in the “Persianization” claim.     

Interest Groups and Presidential Transitions

The study of interest group behavior has focused on many tactical decisions, but not on the decision to participate in presidential transitions. This is a limitation because transitions are associated with policy change and are the first opportunity to influence a new president. This article develops a theory of interest group participation in presidential transitions through an original survey administered during the 2008–2009 Obama transition. The findings suggest that groups participate based on their relationship with the outgoing administration and an evaluation of whether the transition will to lead policy change that advances or harms their interests.     

The Iranian Nuclear Challenge

In December 2003 Iran signed an Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Authority. The signing followed 18 months of mounting international pressure on Iran to prove its benign motives following revelations about past failures to declare work on uranium enrichment and plutonium separation–the two routes to producing nuclear weapons-grade material. Although Iran has strenuously denied having a nuclear weapons programme, both the United States and the European Union have been highly suspicious. However, their responses to Iran have shown a divergence in how to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The way forward on Iran will be influenced significantly by the extent to which the American and European approaches can be reconciled or otherwise.     

Implicaciones legales de las seis muertes en La Celestina: Un acercamiento histórico-literario

This article examines the different types of deaths in La Celestina from the point of view of their legal and sociological significance. The analysis builds on contemporary historical data on suicide, homicide, executions, and accidents. It is shown that, beside its literary value, La Celestina is also an important historical document that provides an accurate portrait of the legal system relative to deaths that were socially unacceptable at that time. This study also highlights the presence of social criticism in the text when it describes how the authorities did not comply with some legal regulations.