Best Dissertation of the Year
The Foundation for Iranian Studies
Announcement
November 15, 1999
The Foundation for Iranian Studies is pleased to announce that the Committee
on the Selection of Best Dissertation of the Year on a Topic of Iranian
Studies of the Foundation for Iranian Studies has chosen Dr. Negar Mottahedeh's
dissertation "Representing the Unpresentable: Historical Images of
Reform from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic of Iran," submitted
to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota, as
the recipient of the Foundation's annual Ph.D. dissertation award for the
academic year 1998-1999.
In making its decision, the Committee noted, in part, "exceptional
contribution to the field of Iranian Studies through an imaginative and
innovative approach to the study of culture, nation, and self...creative
use of text and image as intellectual and artistic devices to translate
and decode expressive forms of Iranian national behaviorclear statement
of the study's problematic and judicious use of method to relate general
theory to specific arguments ...original use of historical and sociological
data to embed image and intellection in history and societyefficient use
of primary source material to elucidate the historical meaning of a religious
group's impulse to reform...sensitivity to signification, symbolism, and
nuance in explicating women and modernization in the Iranian culture...clarity
of language and meaning...attention to detail...good organization of the
work."
The Committee also cited the following dissertations with honorable
mention: Dr. Sunil Sharma, "Poetics of Court and Prison in the Divan
of Mas`ud-e Sa`d-e Salman," The University of Chicago. Dr. Maziar
Lotfalian, "Technoscientific Identities: Muslims and the Culture of
Curiosity," Rice University.
Notice of the awards will appear in the MESA and SIS newsletters, in
Iran Nameh, and in various Persian language and other academic publications.
Gholam Reza Afkhami
Chair,
Dissertation Awards Committee
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