8/15/2019 Nafisi Lecture
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ENG5304 Bibliography and Research Jandy Stone
Dr. James Barcus November 1, 2006
The Republic of the Imagination
A Lecture given by Azar Nafisi
Professor Azar Nafisi is the author of the best-selling
bookReading Lolita in Tehran, a
captivating mixture of memoir, social history, and literary
criticism set against the
backdrop of Irans 1979 Islamic Revolution and the fundamentalist
ideology that has
governed Iran since then. Nafisi earned her advanced academic
degrees in the United
States, but returned to her home country teach English
literature in Tehran, until the
radical Islamic government forced her out of her university
position for her refusal to
wear the veil. Undeterred, she gathered seven of her brightest
female students to study
forbidden books like NabokovsLolita, Fitzgeralds The Great
Gatsby, JamessDaisy
Miller, and AustensPride and Prejudice in her home. She
eventually decided to leave
Iran and now teaches at Johns Hopkins University.
In her lecture, Dr. Nafisi spoke of the importance of the
imagination as a place of
freedom and equality, especially in the politicized modern
world. Her vision of a
republic of the imagination is a space where people of all
countries, religions, and
political stances could gather and find that they really do have
something in common,
their humanity as revealed in the great literature of all
cultures. Literature, paradoxically,
is universal because it is particularby focusing on the
individual, literature highlights
characteristics of human beings that allow the reader to
empathize with the character, to
walk in their shoes, and to form a connection with a situation
or culture that they would
not otherwise have been able to experience. The extreme forms of
politics, on the other
hand, generalize and dehumanize, emphasizing not what is
universal among all humanity
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8/15/2019 Nafisi Lecture
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ENG5304 Bibliography and Research Jandy Stone
Dr. James Barcus November 1, 2006
but the differences that separate one entire culture from
anotherhence misleading terms
such as The Muslim World or Christian Europe.
Dr. Nafisi speaks exactly like she writes inReading Lolita in
Tehran, which is to say,
with a marvelous sense of her audience. She held a group of 200
professors, students,
and laypeople for an hour, garnering both laughs and tears
through her very witty, very
human sensibility. References to recent events and media
frenzies which often seemed
off-the-cuff (I do not know whether they were or not) made the
lecture current and
relatable. She barely used any notes, and came across very
conversationally. She even
included points and references from the luncheon she had had
earlier that day with some
teachers and students. When she referred to her book, it was in
a way that increased the
saliency of her point for those who had read it, but did not
leave those who had not read it
in the dark. Her style of speaking really reinforced the points
she was making, as well, as
she made it very easy to empathize with her, and through her,
with the horrors she saw
before she left Iran.
At this point in my life, there are few people I would desire to
emulate more than Dr.
Nafisi. She is able to clearly indicate the importance of
literature and the humanities in a
world that no longer values them as highly as other disciplines,
and she is able to do so in
a way that appeals not only to academics and aspiring academics,
but to anyone willing to
listen to her.
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