Something is Passing in the Night: Iranian Hyphenates in the World

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:00:00 +0200

Something is Passing in the Night is a work of creative nonfiction tracing the Iranian diaspora in Berlin — from the intellectuals who gathered around Kaviani Press in Charlottenburg to the exiles who built "Little Tehran," to the activists who flooded the streets after the death of Mahsa Amini. Drawing on the mythology of the "city upon a hill," the work asks what freedom means to those who have left Iran behind, and what it costs to dream of it from a distance. Woven through with the poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad, it asks whether belonging is something inherited, or something built.

Armita Mirkarimi is a writer and post-baccalaureate student. A graduate of Dartmouth College, she studied Government and Creative Nonfiction and completed dual honors theses. She has reported for WMUR-TV, The Vermont Standard, and The Granite Post, along with working in Congress and humanitarian policy. She is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Europe in Middle East Institute, where she is writing a collection of essays on nationalism and nostalgia in the Iranian diaspora. She writes in English and Farsi.

Zoya Masoud works at the intersection of postcolonial studies and post-foundational theory. Employing qualitative research methodologies, her work engages in critical inquiry into identity, architecture, heritage, commemoration, violence, and knowledge production. Her first book Dislocated. Heritage Construction through Experience of Loss in Aleppo is forthcoming with De Gruyter/Brill. Currently, she is conducting her postdoctoral project, Irrestitutable. Inquiries into Hauntings of Absent Cultural Heritage. Since Fall 2024, Zoya has been a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project BEYONDREST at the Forum Transregionale Studien. She has worked and studied at several Universities and institutions in Damascus, Hamburg, Dar es Salaam, and Berlin.

Please register in advance via eume(at)trafo-berlin.de. Depending on approval by the speaker(s), the Berliner Seminar will be recorded. All audio recordings of the Berliner Seminar are available on SoundCloud.

Social Cage: Syrian State Building and Atrophy, and Civil War in the long durée

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0200

This session is part of the SYRASP Online Workshop Series “Syria After the Assad Regime: Community Voices, Research Methods, and Digital Tools”, organized in cooperation with The Lab for the Study for Violence. A description of the workshop series is avaible on SYRASP's website, including information on other sessions.

The session will take place online via Zoom. Participation upon prior registration via syrasp[at]trafo-berlin.de.

Forum Transregionale Studien | Veranstaltungen

Something is Passing in the Night: Iranian Hyphenates in the World

Social Cage: Syrian State Building and Atrophy, and Civil War in the long durée