Iran in Context Podcast Series: First Two Episodes Now Available
We are pleased to announce that the first two episodes of the Iran in Context podcast series are now available to listen to.
Co-produced by MERIP, BRISMES, and SeSaMO (the Italian Society for Middle East Studies), the series features conversations with scholars about the deeper context behind the political and military convulsions in Iran over the last year.
Episode 1: Gender and Revolution
The first episode is an audio recording of the inaugural Iran in Context event, held on 18 June 2026, which explored the relationship between gender and revolutionary politics in Iran.
The conversation features Manijeh Moradian, Assistant Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College and author of This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States (Duke University Press, 2022), and Nazanin Shahrokni, Associate Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University and author of Women in Place: The Politics of Gender Segregation in Iran (University of California Press, 2020).
Episode 2: Politics and Counter-Politics in Contemporary Iran
The second episode continues the Iran in Context series, exploring the politics of people’s mobilization and the political cleavages that characterize Iranian society, and how different forms of mobilization have shaped contemporary Iran.
The conversation features Naghmeh Sohrabi (Charles Goodman professor of Middle East History and Director for Research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University), Mohammad Ali Kadivar (Associate Professor of Sociology and International Studies and Fellow at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University), and Paniz Musawi Natanzi (Research Associate at the University of Bern) who help us read competing political narratives, mobilizations, and counter-mobilizations in Iran.
Together, the first two episodes provide timely, in-depth discussions that place recent events in Iran within their broader historical and political context.
Listen to the podcast series:
- Episode 1: https://www.merip.org/2026/06/...
- Episode 2: https://www.merip.org/2026/07/...