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N YUG A L L AT I N school of in div idua lized studY Fall 2010 GallatinT oday Gallatin Home to Iranian Studies Initiative Introducing New Faculty / Voltaire’s Mahomet on Stage at Gallatin / Renowned Critic Harry Berger Teaching at Gallatin / John DeLucie: King of the Kitchen Mahmud Javadipur, Persian Picnic, 1961. Courtesy Grey Art Gallery, New York University Fe At U re s to rY Above: Interior of Chehel- Gallatin Is Home to New Sotoon Palace. Composite image created by Fahimeh Gooran. Below: Metamorphosis, Ardeshir Mohassess. Iranian Studies Initiative Copyright Mohassess Estate YU Gallatin, with leadership academics as well as colleagues at Columbia from Gallatin Professor Ali University, City University of New York, the Mirsepassi and support from the New School and Princeton University. Kevorkian Center for Near East- ISI-NYU is bringing in a number of Nern Studies at NYU, launched the Iranian important speakers throughout the year, Studies Initiative (ISI-NYU) this fall to pro- including Reza Baraheni, the exiled novel- vide a new intellectual and academic space ist, poet, critic and former professor at the in New York City for the study of Iranian University of Tehran, who spoke on October history, society and culture. ISI-NYU finally 7 about monarchy, Islam and the Enlight- offers a central space where scholars and enment. The following evening, the art citizens, from both the NYU community and exhibition The Life and Art of Ardeshir Mohassess beyond, can openly exchange ideas. Given opened at the Gallatin Galleries; a two-day the repression of democracy movements in conference on the artist followed the exhibi- Iran, including the violent suppression of tion. Mohassess, an illustrator and one of the protests following the 2009 presidential the most influential artists in contemporary election, and Iran’s longstanding confronta- Iran, died in 2008 at the age of 70. The New tion with the international community over York Times referred to him as “a cult figure its nuclear program, Mirsepassi observes for artists and intellectuals in his country.” that “Iran is an increasingly important in- On October 21, Michael Fischer of MIT spoke ternational issue.” The founder and director about conducting ethnographic research in of the ISI-NYU, professor and former interim Iran and its diasporas. Minoo Moalem of by Iranian poets, novelists and scholars, dean at Gallatin, as well as the author of De- UC Berkeley will speak on December 2 about particularly those who have written in the mocracy in Modern Iran: Islam, Culture, and Politi- Iranian studies and feminist studies in the past 30 years,” says Mirsepassi, adding that cal Change (NYU Press, 2010), Mirsepassi adds, context of the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the current political situation in Iran has led “There is a vibrant and massive democratic its aftermath. to the silencing of many significant con- movement in Iran, and our hope is to create ISI-NYU plans a translation program temporary literary and scholarly voices. The a community of Iranian Studies scholars with the hope of publishing Persian texts institute’s Web site (www.isi-nyu.org) will and students here.” The initiative will also in English for a wide variety of disciplines. be developed into a space for the exchange of reach out to the broader Iranian community “English-speaking academics, and non- ideas through the publishing of papers and in the metropolitan area, including non- academics, are not exposed to writing other intellectual and artistic work. g a l l at i n s c h o ol of i ndi v i d ua l i z e d s t udY N e w s & N ot es Gallatin Goes to India n January last year, Professor Ritty Lukose inaugurated a travel course to India. For two weeks over the winter Ibreak, Lukose took a group of students to Bangalore, where she partnered with the Srishti School of Art, Design and Tech- nology. Ten Gallatin students studied the theme of culture, development and globalization along with ten students from the Srishti School. “They were meeting as peers,” says Lukose, “and it got them out of their bubble. The Indian students, who were not natives of Bangalore, were learning about their own society as much as the New Yorkers were learning about it.” The group spent the first week in Bangalore, a city that has been remade through globalization. What began as a garrison fort in the medieval period is now a city known for its high-tech industry. In addition to various cultural activities, the students in the course split into three groups: one went to an American-style mall, another went to a traditional produce market, and a third group went to a market in the Brahmin part of town. Comparing notes, they got a sense of how the urban space is divided. The group also visited a pair of temple towns five hours from Bangalore, Belur and Halebid, learning about the way people are struggling over different visions of tourism and development. In the neighboring state of Kerala, the class visited an underdevel- oped area with a large tribal population that had experienced considerable strife when commodity prices fell. The students also looked at an NGO that has a plan for sustainable development based on the use of bamboo. “I wanted them to see that India is not just some exotic land,” says Lukose, “but to understand that culture is dynamic and contextual.” The Chennakesava Temple in Belur, Karnataka, India. Photo: Melissa Daniel New Scholars Group Focuses on the Americas ast year, a new student honors group, lessons learned from the storm. They went to theme is “consumerism”—the linking of the Americas Scholars, was inaugu- the Lower Ninth Ward and saw just how little happiness, freedom and economic prosper- rated at Gallatin. The group is made up has been rebuilt. They spent an afternoon ity with the purchase and consumption of Lof motivated, high-achieving students with a making art projects with students at Martin goods. Over the January break, the group particular interest in the Americas, includ- Behrman Charter School in Algiers, Louisi- will travel to Brazil. “While consumption has ing the U.S., other parts of North America, ana, and were treated to a performance by long been taken for granted as constituting Central America, South America and the Delfeayo Marsalis and his band. During the the ‘good life’ in industrialized societies like Caribbean. The scholars’ theme last year was year, the Americas Scholars meet biweekly the U.S.,” says DaCosta, “Brazil is experienc- “the social production of natural disaster,” for readings, guest speakers, field trips and ing a relatively rapid economic expansion and they traveled to New Orleans to explore independent research as well as biweekly that is changing the way its citizens relate to it. To understand how the city is coping five discussions involving the entire group. consumption.” years after Hurricane Katrina, the group This year, according to Kimberly Da- visited with an urban planning expert who Costa, Gallatin’s Associate Dean of Students, spoke about how the city is responding to who leads the America’s Scholars, the group’s ne w Yor k uni v e r s i t Y Fall 2010 M ee t t he FACU lt Y Gallatin Welcomes New Faculty Fulbright-Hays and the National Science wrote, “The ability of some objects to be highly Foundation. After completing her Ph.D. in designed without signaling the fact of their design is geography at U.C. Berkeley, she was a Post- their allure, their interest, and their beauty.” doctoral Research Scholar with the Commit- tee on Global Thought at Columbia Univer- sity. At Columbia, she taught at the Institute for African Studies and co-organized the series The World and Africa for the Committee on Global Thought. Currently, she is revising her dissertation, “Doing the Dirty Work: The Cultural Politics of Garbage Collection in Da- kar, Senegal,” for publication, while launch- ing a new line of research into the politics of Senegalese hip hop in Dakar and the Senega- lese diaspora. Her general interests include African cities, youth studies, Islam, critical valerie forman development studies, feminist geography Ph.D. in Literature, Women’s Studies Nota- and urban political ecology. Mitchell Joachim tion, University of California, Santa Cruz, Fredericks is a longtime fan of the deep house M. Arch., Columbia University, 1997; M. Arch. 2000 dance music scene; she’s thrown dance parties as in Urban Design, Harvard University, 2002; Valerie Forman’s research and teaching far and wide as San Francisco and Dakar. Ph.D. in Architecture: Design and Computa- interests lie in the literature and econom- tion, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ics of 16th- and 17th-century Europe, drama, 2006 women writers, economic history, political Mitchell Joachim’s teaching and research theory and Marxist theory. She specializes interests lie in architecture, urban planning in Renaissance and 17th-century English and sustainable design. An architect and literature and culture, the 17th-century urban designer in New York City special- Atlantic World and 16th-century French izing in the theory and science of ecological literature. Before coming to Gallatin, For- design, he is the co-founder of Terreform man taught in the Department of English at ONE and Terrefuge, a nonprofit organization the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her first and philanthropic design collaborative that book, Tragicomic Redemptions: Global Economics integrates ecological principles in the urban and the Early Modern English Stage (University of environment. His designs for transportation Pennsylvania Press, 2008), connects tragi- in the urban environment include stack- comic theater to the new economic practices able cars, cars made of airbags and designs developed to conduct long-distance trade for individual jetpacks.

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