Home » News » THE COMMUNICATOR

THE COMMUNICATOR

By Monette Austin Bailey, Terp Magazine

Fatemeh Keshavarz, new director of the Roshan Center for Persian Studies, isn’t thinking small: She wants to move her field “to the center of humanities on campus,” she says.

Keshavarz, who is also the first Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute Chair in Persian Studies, is planning projects such a first-time translation of the seminal “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” a collaboration with the Department of Women’s Studies, and awarding fellowships to train academic leaders who broaden the field’s scope by working across disciplines. Keshavarz also hopes to improve digital access to poetry, music, lectures and scholarly texts.

“The Iranian community in the United States is just coming to realize that it has a lot to offer,” she says.

Keshavarz brings her own impressive record to Maryland. An internationally respected interpreter and scholar, she spoke before the United Nations in 2007 on the importance of cultural education to world peace.