Today’s episode of the MERIP Podcast is an audio recording from the first event in our Iran in Context series. This series is co-produced by MERIP, BRISMES, the British Society for Middle East Studies, and SeSaMO, the Italian Society for Middle East Studies. Each event features conversations with scholars about the deeper context behind the political and military convulsions in Iran over the last year. 

For the first installment, we took up the topic of gender and revolution in conversation with Manijeh Moradian, assistant professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College and author of the book, 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 the book, Women in Place: The Politics of Gender Segregation in Iran (University of California Press, 2020).

This conversation was recorded on June 18, 2026.

Further Reading: 

Manijeh Moradian, This Flame Within Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States (Duke University Press, 2022)

Manijeh Moradian, "Feminist Uprising in Iran and the Politics of Solidarity," Meridians (April 2026) 

Manijeh Moradian "Decolonial Diasporas: Iranian Feminist Solidarity in Global Context" Iranian Studies. (October 2025) 

Manijeh Moradian, "Embodying Revolution: Situating Iran within Transnational Feminist Solidarities," Radical History Review (January 2024) 

Feminists for Jina 

Nazanin Shahrokni, Women in Place: The Politics of Gender Segregation in Iran (University of California Press 2020)

Nazanin Shahrokni, “Who Speaks for Iran?–and From Where? Geopolitics, Representation and Solidarity,” SPECTRE: A Marxist Journal, March 2, 2026