The main objective of this course is to invite the students to revisit their assumptions about Iran and Iranians and their social values through various alternative lenses such as fiction, poetry, social media and cinema. Students of all backgrounds are encouraged to bring their own personal stories of cultural misconceptions to class as a point of departure. Through class discussions and activities, students are invited to connect their own personal stories with those offered in the teaching materials.

Iran is one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse countries in the Middle East. This course is designed to introduce an alternative version of Iran which is not available in Western media. Students come to learn about various ethnic and religious minorities and their survival mechanism in a majority Muslim country. Students become familiar with the most complex ways of interpretation of religion as a culture and tradition rather than pure ideology that is practiced among Iranians.

The course focuses on the cultural specifics of the Iranian society and Persian culture while trying to connect those specifics to the more general parallels in the region and beyond. Students learn how to engage with the question of race, ethnicity and gender in the Iranian context through a comparative lens. The teaching materials include some comparative perspectives on other cultural contexts. Through the medium of film and visual arts, students develop a more sophisticated, nuanced and layered understanding of Iran.

Students read and understand Iran through a variety of sources such as social media, movies, poems, short stories, novels, memoirs, fictions and academic articles. They will feel confident in the following methodological areas by the end of the semester: Close reading of the literary texts, critical cultural and visual analysis of artistic products, writing cultural and critical commentaries, analytical thinking, academic writing skills.