BCRW and the Middle East Institute at Columbia University are proud to host author and Barnard/Columbia University alum Nina Ansary in a conversation with Richard Bulliet, Columbia Professor of History and Middle East Studies, on Ansary’s widely anticipated book Jewels of Allah. Based on her doctoral thesis on the women’s movement in Iran, Jewels of Allah shatters stereotypical assumptions and the often misunderstood story of women in Iran today. Challenging the dominant narrative of the demise of women and their downward spiral into passive submission since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Ansary argues that “despite the current regime’s best laid plans to redirect women into the private domain, the female population in Iran is distinguished by an unprecedented surge in female literacy and a flourishing feminist movement against the boundaries of traditional religious prescription.” Join us for an engaging discussion of what Ansary describes as “the unanticipated consequences of measures undertaken by the Islamic regime, which ironically ended up empowering women.”
Nina Ansary is an elected member of the Everychild Foundation and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the National Organization for Women (NOW), and the U.S. National Committee for U.N. Women (USNC) organizations dedicated to public policy and supporting education, charitable and gender-related causes.
