Afs膩neh Najm膩b膩di (Persian: 丕賮爻丕賳賴 賳噩賲 丌亘丕丿蹖鈥�) (born 1946) is an Iranian-American historian and gender theorist. She is professor of History and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University. At present she chairs the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. She is further Associate Editor of Encyclopaedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, in six volumes.
Afsaneh Najmabadi moved as student from University of Tehran to Radcliffe College in 1966. She obtained her BA in physics in 1968 from Radcliffe College, Harvard University, and her MA in physics in 1970 from Harvard University. Following this, she pursued social studies, combining academic interests with engagement in social activism, first in the United States of America and later in Iran. She obtained her PhD in sociology in 1984 from University of Manchester, United Kingdom.
Professor Najmabadi has been Nemazee Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University (1984鈥�1985), Fellow at Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown University (1988鈥�1989), at Harvard Divinity School (Women's Studies in Religion Program) (1988鈥�1989), at Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University (1994鈥�1995), and at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University (2000鈥�2001). After nine years of teaching and research at the Department of Women's Studies of Barnard College, in July 2001 she joined Harvard University as Professor of History and of Women's Studies. Under her tenure as chair, the Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies changed its name to the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
Professor Najmabadi's most recent researches have been concerned with the study of the ways in which concepts and practices of sex and sexuality have transformed in Iran, from the late-nineteenth-century to the present-day Iran.
With the continued demonization of Islam and the Middle East as 鈥渉omophobic鈥� and 鈥渂ackwards,鈥� it鈥檚 important to remember how imperialism imposed heteronormativity on many non-Western cultures. Historic legacies of beauty, gender & queer sexuality were erased in order to be validated as 鈥渃ivilized鈥� by Western modern aesthetic regimes.
In her fiercely detailed work, Najmabadi examines the archive of early Qajar Iran (1785-1925) showing how beauty was largely undifferentiated by gender, and that desirable 鈥渕en鈥� and 鈥渨omen鈥� were depicted with similar facial & bodily features. In fact, 鈥渨omen鈥� with mustaches were largely celebrated as extremely beautiful!
By and large, pre-modern Islamic literature largely considered gender insignificant to love. Ghazal 鈥� a form of Persian poetics 鈥� was a prolific space for the articulation of 鈥渕ale homoeroticism.鈥� Sexual practices were not conceived of as fixed into an orientation nor identity so people engaged in a wide variety of sex acts. When Europeans began to travel & write about Iran they dismissed Iran as backwards for what they labeled as degenerate same-sex practices.
In response to this systematic shaming, a process of heterosexualization of Iranian society began to occur that enacted gender as binary. Central to this was the feminization of beauty. Previously ungendered symbols such as angels became depicted as feminine. Iranian men were pressured to differentiate the boundaries of 鈥渉omosociality鈥� from 鈥渉omosexuality,鈥� so women became the only socially acceptable object of desire for men. Under this new Western gender binary imagination of gender, 鈥渟ame-sex鈥� desire became feminized and irreconcilable with modern masculinity. As Najmabadi writes, 鈥渢he male beloved [once adored], now feminized, became subject to ridicule鈥� (60).
This long legacy of queer expression was suppressed and often destroyed, disappearing long-standing traditions of gender non-conformity from the cultural imagination. This project is not meant to romanticize a pre-modern past, rather it is meant to elaborate the mechanics through which colonial gender binarism came to structure beauty & love, dispossessing a vibrant history of queer expression.
I certainly think that this book is invaluable and really has not been taken seriously enough, but one concern I had (which is a concern I have with a lot of feminist writing on these topics) is the troubling of gender all the while the stabilizing of sex. Najmbadi still unquestioningly defaults into the language of "male" and "female," and "same-sex," without recognizing how sex, too, is an imperial construction. The reason I write this review with so many identities in "quotes," is because so much gets lost in translation when we try to fit these non-Western historic ways of being into contemporary Western grammar of gender and sexuality.
Relying primarily on textual references & visual representations, mainly-art and poetry, Afsaneh Najmabadi convincingly argues, how interaction with Europe changed the sexual landscape of Iran during the nineteenth-century, transforming the normalcy of homoerotic desires and practices into an abominable act and a national shame, ultimately culminating into heteronormalization. And, how the Iranian modernists came to accept the standards of European modernity and civilization. Najmabadi also presents the role which symbols of gender, sexuality, love, affection, the beloved and the presence of grammatical gender in the Iranian language play in Iranian nationalism. Applying an innovative technique and approach, Najmabadi provides us with the history of nineteenth-century Qajar Iran through the lenses of gender and sexuality. A wonderful read!
As an Iranian I found this book really useful. First and most, this book gave me an general idea about the development of sexuality in my culture and how much it was different. to be honest I had no idea about most of the aspects that Najmabadi mentioned in her book. The book slides very smoothly from discussing sexuality to gender studies of Iranian culture and by the last chapters you know the general idea and of course can deduce what the author is going to mention. This is so amazing as the reading become much more enjoyable. The last chapter are dedicated to gender studies and by reading them I got a better understanding of when women of my country started their fight for equality and what steps they took, the fight that is still on-going.