Persian–Arabic Calligraphy Workshop
Please join us for a hands-on Persian–Arabic Calligraphy Workshop on Friday, October 23, from 2:30–4:30 pm in Denny Hall 303. Featuring artists Elinor Holland and Reza Abbasi, the event will include live demonstrations and a chance to try calligraphy.
Please help spread the word by sharing it with your students and colleagues. We hope to see you there!
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Denny Hall (DEN). Campus room: 303. Accessibility Contact: melc@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops. Target Audience: Undergraduates and Graduate Students.
Friday, October 23, 2026, 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM.
The 2026 Afrassiabi Distinguished Lectures in Persian and Iranian Studies
Nearly half a century after the Iranian Revolution, a striking paradox has emerged. Many young Iranians reject 1979 as the origin of the political order they seek to overcome, while many of the revolutionary generation have become estranged from the revolution they once made. Yet successive waves of protest, from the Green Movement to Women, Life, Freedom, have returned to the street—the quintessential space of revolutionary politics—to challenge the Islamic Republic.
In the wake of state brutality, political disappointment, and the ongoing effects of the US and Israeli wars on Iran, the present is increasingly marked by exhaustion and political impasse. This lecture asks what becomes visible when we remember 1979 before its outcome was known: when leftists, nationalists, Islamists, workers, students, intellectuals, merchants, and others occupied the same streets while imagining radically different futures.
Naghmeh Sohrabi is the Charles (Corky) Goodman Professor of Middle East History at Brandeis University…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Denny Hall (DEN). Campus room: 311. Accessibility Contact: Disabilities Service Office. Event Types: Academics. Special Events. Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: General public, students.
Friday, October 30, 2026, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.
Student Scholarship Showcase: A Celebration of 2025-26 Parvin E’tesami Student Support Fund Recipients
Join the Middle East Center for a celebration of 2025-26 Parvin E’tesami Student Support Fund recipients. Learn more about the E'tesami Fund here: https://jsis.washington.edu/middleeast/student-support-fund/
Additional details forthcoming.
Free and open to all. At the Jackson School, opportunities and events are open to all eligible persons regardless of race, sex or other identity. .
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Thomson Hall (THO). Campus room: THO 317. Accessibility Contact: mecuw@uw.edu. Event Types: Exhibits.
Tuesday, November 3, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
Mother Tongue in Other Tongues: Life in Translation; Public talk by translator Aron Aji
Aron Aji cannot recall a time when he was not translating. Growing up in Turkey among Ladino, Hebrew, and French used at home and then, from elementary school on, in Turkish—and studying in English later—he learned to move between languages long before he began translating Turkish literature. In this talk, Aji asks what that lifelong experience brings to the page. What happens when English meets a Turkish text on its own terms? How might the text stretch English’s rhythms and expressive habits, rather than simply fit into them? Aji calls his approach “acoustic translation”: an act of close listening that draws on memory, sound, and the senses to recreate the experience of a work in another language. Translation, in this account, is a way of hearing a text—and of finding one’s way back to the languages of one’s life.
About the speaker: Aron Aji has published ten book-length translations of modern and contemporary Turkish literature, alongside numerous translations of poetry and prose. His translation of Bilge…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 120. Accessibility Contact: UW Accessibility. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: General public, undergrads, grad students, faculty.
Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM.