Ms. Sepideh Mohammadian, an accomplished Iranian, lawyer, writer and public intellectual. Her works of fiction and her monographs, mostly on issues dealing with women, offer a fascinating, innovative and daring new look at the question of women, their abuse and their defiance, in Iranian society. She will be giving a talk for us on the subject of "Women In Contemporary Literature of Iran: Seeking Meaning and Awareness." Her experience along with her writings afford her a singular vista to discuss this crucial topic.

Pouya Afshar is an alumnus from the California Institute of Arts Character Animation department and is a graduate of University of California Los Angeles Graduate Department of Film and Television focusing in Animation and Digital Media. He has exhibited his work as an animator and visual artist throughout Los Angeles and United States at renowned locations such as Harold M. Williams Auditorium at the Getty Center, Bovard Auditorium at University of Southern California, Royce Hall at University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Santa Monica Art studios, 18th street Art Center, Art Miami/Context and Shulamit Gallery. Pouya is the creator, character designer and producer of the animated series "Rostam in Wonderland." He is currently an Assistant Professor of art at University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Maryam Kamali is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. She focuses on the social history and historiography of the Middle East and Central Asia and currently teaches courses on the History of the Middle East and Women in the Islamic Middle East at Harvard.

Parinoush Saniee is an Iranian born writer, trained as a psychologist but has garnered an international reputation as a writer of fiction that focuses on the plight of Iranian women. Her work is especially intriguing because she combines her experience as a psychologist with her talent as a writer of fiction. Her books include My Share, The Father of the Other One, and Those Who Left and Those Who Stayed.

Does morality come from God, as many religions believe, offering a foundation of theocracy, or could there be biological explanations that have more to do with evolution than Divine design? In this lecture, De Waal will discuss the sense of fairness in animals and will review expressions of empathy in animals.

Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal is a Dutch/American biologist and primatologist known for his work on the behavior and social intelligence of primates. He is currently C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University and Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Center, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Amir Ahmadi Arian is an Iranian writer and translator. He has published a collection of stories, Fragments of a Crime in 2005, and his novel, The Cogwheels, published in 2009, was shortlisted for Golshiri award. His translation work includes novels by Paul Auster, Cormac Mccarthy, E.L. Doctorow, and P.D James into Persian.

The son of an American father and Iranian mother, Cyrus M. Copeland’s new book, Off the Radar, is a memoir about his father accused of being a CIA agent by the Islamic Republic and his mother’s attempt to defend him in military court.

Massoud Behnoud is an Iranian journalist and writer and lifelong proponent of freedom of speech and press. He has founded newspapers and magazines and also authored 17 books on contemporary Iranian history, compilations of short essays and stories, and biographical historical novels. He has been a journalist for the BBC World services since 1992.

Majid Roshangar, editor in chief of the Persian Book Review since 1965, had a long and distinguished career as a publisher, editor, and author in Iran. He also holds an MA in Government from the University of New South Wales, Australia and served in Iran’s Foreign Service in the 1960s and 1970s.

Dr. Kamran Talattof is professor of Persian of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. He has published widely on issues of gender, sexuality, ideology, culture, and language pedagogy. His lecture will provide textual and discursive analyses of Iranian women's bestselling novels of the last two decades, placing them in the context within which they were published and read to reveal what they say about society's desire for reform, democracy, and civility.