The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization is pleased to announce that the lecture series "Afghanistan through Afghan Voices" successfully drew to a close on Thursday, June 2. The University of Washington (Aria Fani), UCLA (Domenico Ingenito), and Stanford University (Mejgan Massoumi) joined forces last summer to design and organize an expansive lecture series that focused on that country's society, history, arts, and literature.
The virtual series was cumulatively seen by an audience of more than 540 people worldwide from January to June. It featured scholars, educators, translators, and poets from eleven universities who work across different fields (Afghanistan, Central and South Asian, Iranian studies), languages (Persian, Urdu, Pashto, Uzbek, English, French, German, and others), and disciplines (translation studies, history, gender studies, comparative literature, media studies, and others). The abstracts and videos of different panels may be accessed here.
"Afghanistan through Afghan Voices" aimed to celebrate the country's linguistic diversity, highlight new and exciting scholarship in Afghanistan studies, and coalesce scholarly energy around the study of Afghans and Afghanistan. The organizers are currently discussing how to continue their collaboration in order to better connect scholars of Afghanistan working on the US West Coast and support Afghan scholars and educators who are seeking new academic homes.
As a way of furthering these national and international efforts, NELC is thrilled to announce that Prof. Fani will be offering an exciting new course titled "Afghanistan beyond the Headlines" in the next winter quarter. The course will introduce UW students to the country's multifaceted society, history, religions, and literary traditions. If you are interested to learn more, please contact Prof. Fani directly (ariafani@uw.edu).