Iranian-American Hamid Dabashi, author of Iran: A People Interrupted, and professor at Columbia University explains all about Iran, the ’79 hostage crisis, the captured British sailors and Marines, whether Iranians are inherent hostage takers, the aberration that is the Mullahs’ regime in that country, the severe economic problems they suffer due to the burdens of socialism, the IMF and the World Bank, how Ahmadinejad won, and the possibility of war between our nations.
Hamid Dabashi received a dual Ph.D. in Sociology of Culture and Islamic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. He wrote his dissertation on Max Weber’s theory of charismatic authority with Philip Rieff (1922-2006), the most distinguished Freudian cultural critic of his time. He is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious Chair in Iranian Studies. He has also taught and delivered lectures in many North American, European, Arab and Iranian universities. He lives in New York with his wife and colleague, the Iranian-Swedish feminist, Golbarg Bashi.
Professor Dabashi has written 12 critically acclaimed books, edited 4, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews in major scholarly and peer reviewed journals on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, Shi’ism, Medieval and Modern Islamic Intellectual History, Comparative Literature, World Cinema, Trans-aesthetics, Trans-national Art, Philosophy, Mysticism, Theology, Post-colonial Theory and Cultural Studies.
An internationally renowned cultural critic and award-winning author, his books and articles have been translated into numerous languages, including Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Danish, Russian, Hebrew, Italian, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Urdu and Catalan.
Among his best-known books are his Authority in Islam, Theology of Discontent, Truth and Narrative, Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future, Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran and an edited volume, Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema. His newest is Iran: A People Interrupted.