The Iranian Studies initiative is led by Professor Janet Afary, professor of Religious Studies at UCSB, who has published extensively on modern Iranian culture and politics as well as issues of gender, family, intimacy, and sexuality in Muslim-majority societies. She received her PhD with distinction from the University of Michigan. Her books include: Sexual Politics in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2009, winner of the British Society for Middle East Studies Annual Book Prize); The Iranian Constitutional Revolution: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism (Columbia University Press, 1996, winner of Dehkhoda Institute Book Award; (with Kevin B. Anderson) Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism (University of Chicago Press, 2005, winner of the Latifeh Yarshater Book Award for Iranian Women’s Studies); (with John R. Perry) Charand-o Parand: Revolutionary Satire in Iran (Yale University Press, 2016), Honorable Mention Lois Roth Persian Translation Prize,And (with Kamran Afary) Molla Nasreddin: The Making of a Modern Trickster (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), winner of the British-Kuwait  Friendship Society Book Prize for best scholarly book in Middle East Studies published in the UK, and the Eugenia M. Palmegian Prize from the American Historical Association (US). She has served as president of several academic associations including the Association for Iranian Studies,  the Coordinating Council for Women in History (CCWH-AHA), and the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS-MESA). For more information, please see: https://janetafary.com/