The Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) is holding its 2024 annual conference, titled “The Social Sciences and Humanities in Iran: Possibilities and Constraints,” from 9-10 October 2024.
The 2024 annual conference of the ACRPS’s Iranian Studies Unit will explore the evolution and current state of social sciences and humanities in Iran. The conference will reflect on the state of social sciences and humanities in theory, methodology, and practice, and will examine how they are taught and researched in Iran. In addition to looking at some of the key institutions that have shaped social sciences and humanities research in Iran, the conference will examine the impact of the Islamic Republic’s establishment and its policies, as well as the state’s official discourse, on research and teaching in social sciences and humanities, with a focus on the relationship between academia and politics and state ideology. It will pay close attention to the challenges that Iranian academics face when teaching and conducting research in the humanities and social sciences, particularly given the pervasiveness of state surveillance.
The conference will further discuss other issues, such as the dismissal of university professors; restricted research budgets; the gloomy state of the academic job market and high rates of unemployment among graduates; the local production of social science and humanities research versus reliance on Western concepts, theories, and methodologies; assumptions underlying the study of Arab region and Middle Eastern countries; the impact of international sanctions on research, publication, and academic exchanges; brain drain and migration of Iranian students and professors abroad; research ethics; securitization of social science and humanities research; the problem of language and access to scholarship produced outside Iran; and the inaccessibility of scholarship produced inside Iran for global academic audiences.
For inquiries related to the conference, please contact: Iranianstudiesunit@dohainstitute.org
Conference venue: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Doha, Qatar
