Masahat: Can 'Community' Survive a War on Our Collective Imagination - Pardis Shafafi
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Masahat and Litteraturhuset is proud to welcome anthropologist Dr. Pardis Shafafi to give keynote during Mashat festival.
Join us at Litteraturhuset for insights from almost two decades of research on Iranian state violence and trauma politics. Shafafi is preparing her latest co-edited, collected volume for publication, published by Bloomsbury: "The Long Iranian Revolution: Memories, Oblivions, and the Afterlives of 1979.", with Chowra Makaremi and Amir Kianpour. Alongside her work on Iran she researches technopolitics as an extension of and new terrain of political struggle.
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What will she cover in the talk?
Can 'Community' Survive a War
on Our Collective Imagination: Iran and Iranians on the Frontlines
Contemporary Iran is often framed as a laboratory of revolution and state violence. Yet, the current conflict reveals an even more insidious strategy: a laboratory for the engineered sabotage of the Iranian opposition and transnational solidarity. Beyond the geopolitical theatre of strikes, the Islamic Republic’s most effective violence has been the quiet dismantling of the community pillars of a sprawling, diverse diaspora and its connections to global political movements.
This talk illustrates the shifts in modes of state violence, from the "public secrecy" of the 1980s to a communication strategy which appears as naked, performative necropolitics on display from 2022 onwards. It contends that this violence extends beyond the regime's prisons and gallows within Iran; it also traps us in a hostage mindset. We have begun to imagine liberation only through the master’s own tools: unrelenting violence and profanity politics. In this epistemic fog, where algorithms and "bad faith actors" steer us toward vitriol, our collective imagination is under siege. We face a nebulous cognitive dissonance: in our desperation to desecrate the regime's "sacred" symbols and reclaim our agency, have we rendered the lives of children profane? Can we move beyond this "death-driven" logic to reclaim a solidarity that proposes a future on our own terms? Ultimately, what can Iran teach us about the vital importance of community in enacting true socio-political change?
Sunday 20. September Kl. 15.00
Litteraturhuset (Wergelandsveien 29, 0167 Oslo)
The lecture will be held in English.
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Who is Dr. Pardis Shafafi?
Dr. Pardis Shafafi is an applied anthropologist and associate researcher at the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Politique (LAP/EHESS, Paris). Her work confronts Iranian state violence, trauma politics, and systemic impunity, focusing on state-led practices of "enforced forgetting," the weaponisation of historical memory, and grass-roots accountability initiatives.
She regularly contributes analysis on these themes to international and national media, including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Radio France Internationale, Aftenposten and NRK. This work is further developed in her academic publications, notably in the upcoming co-edited volume, The Long Iranian Revolution: Counter-Memories, Violence and the Afterlives of 1979 (Bloomsbury, 2026). This collected volume reframes the 1979 revolution not as a closed chapter that inevitably led to today's regime, but as a battlefield of unresolved conflicts, concealed histories and interrupted possibilities.
She is the current executive co-editor of academic journal Anthropology in Action (Berghahn publishing) and serves on the board of Article 19’s Middle East chapter. Alongside her work on Iran she researches technopolitics as an extension of and new terrain of political struggle.
Join us at Litteraturhuset for insights from almost two decades of research on Iranian state violence and trauma politics. Shafafi is preparing her latest co-edited, collected volume for publication, published by Bloomsbury: "The Long Iranian Revolution: Memories, Oblivions, and the Afterlives of 1979.", with Chowra Makaremi and Amir Kianpour. Alongside her work on Iran she researches technopolitics as an extension of and new terrain of political struggle.
-----------------------------------------
What will she cover in the talk?
Can 'Community' Survive a War
on Our Collective Imagination: Iran and Iranians on the Frontlines
Contemporary Iran is often framed as a laboratory of revolution and state violence. Yet, the current conflict reveals an even more insidious strategy: a laboratory for the engineered sabotage of the Iranian opposition and transnational solidarity. Beyond the geopolitical theatre of strikes, the Islamic Republic’s most effective violence has been the quiet dismantling of the community pillars of a sprawling, diverse diaspora and its connections to global political movements.
This talk illustrates the shifts in modes of state violence, from the "public secrecy" of the 1980s to a communication strategy which appears as naked, performative necropolitics on display from 2022 onwards. It contends that this violence extends beyond the regime's prisons and gallows within Iran; it also traps us in a hostage mindset. We have begun to imagine liberation only through the master’s own tools: unrelenting violence and profanity politics. In this epistemic fog, where algorithms and "bad faith actors" steer us toward vitriol, our collective imagination is under siege. We face a nebulous cognitive dissonance: in our desperation to desecrate the regime's "sacred" symbols and reclaim our agency, have we rendered the lives of children profane? Can we move beyond this "death-driven" logic to reclaim a solidarity that proposes a future on our own terms? Ultimately, what can Iran teach us about the vital importance of community in enacting true socio-political change?
Sunday 20. September Kl. 15.00
Litteraturhuset (Wergelandsveien 29, 0167 Oslo)
The lecture will be held in English.
-----------------------------------------
Who is Dr. Pardis Shafafi?
Dr. Pardis Shafafi is an applied anthropologist and associate researcher at the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Politique (LAP/EHESS, Paris). Her work confronts Iranian state violence, trauma politics, and systemic impunity, focusing on state-led practices of "enforced forgetting," the weaponisation of historical memory, and grass-roots accountability initiatives.
She regularly contributes analysis on these themes to international and national media, including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Radio France Internationale, Aftenposten and NRK. This work is further developed in her academic publications, notably in the upcoming co-edited volume, The Long Iranian Revolution: Counter-Memories, Violence and the Afterlives of 1979 (Bloomsbury, 2026). This collected volume reframes the 1979 revolution not as a closed chapter that inevitably led to today's regime, but as a battlefield of unresolved conflicts, concealed histories and interrupted possibilities.
She is the current executive co-editor of academic journal Anthropology in Action (Berghahn publishing) and serves on the board of Article 19’s Middle East chapter. Alongside her work on Iran she researches technopolitics as an extension of and new terrain of political struggle.
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Where is it happening?
Litteraturhuset, Wergelandsveien 29, 0167 Oslo, Norge, Oslo, Norway
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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