Marjan Moosavi
Associate Director of PersDig@UMD, Roshan Institute for Persian Studies
Associate Director of PersDig@UMD, Persian
Assistant Clinical Professor in Persian Studies and Performing Arts, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Affiliate Faculty, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
moosavi@umd.edu
1220A Jiménez Hall
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Research Expertise
Performance Studies
Theatre Theory
Marjan Moosavi is an educator, researcher, digital curator, and dramaturg. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Toronto. She is the Roshan Assistant Clinical Professor in Persian Studies and MENA Performing Arts and the Associate Director of the Roshan Initiative in Persian Digital Humanities at the University of Maryland, where she designs curriculum, mentors graduate students and pursues her transnational projects at the intersection of Theatre Studies and Digital Humanities. Her work, whether academic or artistic, examines the dynamics of theatre-making in Middle Eastern countries and theatre’s intersection with gender, history, and politics. Her research has been published in venues including The Drama Review (TDR), New Theatre Quarterly, Routledge Handbook of Persian Literary Translation, and Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy. She is a longstanding Regional Managing Editor for TheTheatreTimes.com.
Courses
Theatre and Dance in Iran and Afghanistan
Iranian Cinema
Art Activism in Iran
Modern Iran
Recent Publications:
2022- “Walking Backward on a Global Tightrope.” Teaching Performance Practices in Remote and Hybrid Spaces, ed. by Jeanmarie Higgins and Elisha C. Halpin, Routledge, 2022.
2022- “White Rabbits of Wonderland: Scenes from Translating and Teaching of Persian Theatre.” The Routledge Handbook of Persian Literary Translation, ed. by Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi, Michelle Quay, and Patricia J. Higgins, 2022.
2022- "Rebels and Revels: Exhibit Curation of the photo exhibit on Theatre of the Middle East” with Kelley Holley and Q-mars Haeri. Critical Stages 25: June 2022.
2021- “2020 ATHE Conference Middle Eastern Theatre Focus Group Roundtable: Pedagogy and Absence” with R. Esfandiary, Michael M. Najjar, S. Al-Saber, et al. Theatre Topics 31:1.
2019- “Mystic Lear and Laughing Hamlet: Critical Cultural Dramaturgy in the Iranian Appropriations of Shakespearean Tragedies” with Amin Azimi. Asian Theatre Journal 36:1.
2018- “Desacralizing Whispers: Theatrical Counter-Conduct in the Iranian War Theatre.” New Theatre Quarterly 34: 3, Cambridge University Press.
2018- “B for Badan, Blessed and (B)othered: the Counter-Sacred in the Iranian Theatre of War.” Ecumenica: Performance and Religion 11:2.
Publications
To Catch a Glimpse from Afar: MENA Scholars in US International Conferences
The article, which offers practical solutions to a pressing issue, explores the challenges faced by scholars and artists from the Middle East and North Africa when participating in academic conferences in the United States.
Author/Lead: Marjan MoosaviAs a dauntless practitioner of exulansis, Marjan Moosavi writes this Note from the Field in an attempt to unlearn my practice of keeping silent about the challenges of moving across borders. It is based on a survey she did about the challenges and issues (e.g., securing visas and funds) that Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) scholars/researchers sadly encounter when they decide to participate in US conferences. While offering specific action items to the ATHE organizing committee, she reminds her fellow MENA colleagues who have experienced disconnect that their sadness should prompt a vivid upsurge of collective attention to the countless possibilities we organizers and participants still have for cosmopolitan friendship while taking joy and grief all in, at once, from afar.
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