Social Change: Challenges for Modern Iran

Iran is experiencing the most turbulent period since 2009. The protests after the death of Mahsa Amini will be lasting for eight weeks on 11/11. They have surpassed recent waves of social unrest in social, geographic, and ethnic scope. The presence of women and demands for personal freedom are changing both the nature of political disputes and the country itself.
How does the Iranian political philosopher perceive the various aspects of the demonstrations? To what extent have women defying political and religious authority already changed Iran? Do the protests represent a real challenge to revolutionary ideology or are they leading to deepening the trenches between political camps? How does Iran’s constitutional system work? What is the role of ideology in it and how is it determined by different power groups? What is the role of students, moderates, and reformists on the one hand and ethnic and religious minorities on the other? How should we understand women’s involvement considering earlier women’s movements? Is there continuity between the women’s movement of the 1990s and today? Are there explicit feminist demands, or is the movement focused on civil rights and equality? Come discuss similar questions with Maysam Badamchi.
Dr Meysam Badamchi is a political philosopher born in northern Iran. He studied physics in Tehran and philosophy at Sharif University and received a doctorate at LUISS University in Rome. He worked as a post-doctoral fellow and researcher at the Center for Modern Turkish Studies at Istanbul Şehir University and the Philosophical Institute in Leiden (Netherlands). He deals with modern Iranian thought, various forms of reformism in Iran and the question of liberalism in the contemporary Muslim world. He is the author of the book Post-Islamist Political Theory: Iranian Intellectuals and Political Liberalism in Dialogue, Springer 2017. He participates in several intercultural and intellectual exchanges such as the Istanbul Seminars at Bilgi University and the Cartages Seminars of the RESET DOC organization. Previously, he also worked as a journalist e.g. BBC Persian.
The evening will be presented by Zora Hesová from the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences.
The debate will be moderated by Matouš Horčička from the Department of the Middle East at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University and the Madzlis Student Association.
The debate will take place in English.
Time and date: Friday 11 November 2022, 17:30
Place: Prostor 39 (Řehořova 39, Praha 3)
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