Roxanne Varzi
Professor, Anthropology
School of Social Sciences
School of Social Sciences
Professor, Film & Media Studies
School of Humanities
School of Humanities
Ph.D., Columbia University, 2002, Social cultural anthropology
University of California, Irvine
3314 social and behavioral gateway
Mail Code: 5100
Irvine, CA 92697
3314 social and behavioral gateway
Mail Code: 5100
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Anthropology, multi-modal and visual, Iran, Media, War, sound ethnography, Film studies, creative and experimental writing, experimental ethnography, theater
Websites
Academic Distinctions
2016 Gold Medal, Last Scene Underground: An Ethnographic Novel of Iran, Palo
Alto: Stanford University Press. Gold Medalist (in fiction) in the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), sponsored by the Independent Publisher Book Awards.
2014-15 Invited artist, Bid Book, Sienna’s Application for European Capital of Culture
2007Winner, Short Story Award for Ethnographic Fiction, Society of Humanistic Anthropology.
2007 Warring Souls: media, martyrdom and youth in post-Revolution Iran, Short-listed for the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Book Prize.
2007 Warring Souls: media, martyrdom and youth in post-Revolution Iran, Short-listed for the Cambridge University, Middle East Center, British-Kuwait Friendship Book Prize in Middle Eastern Society
GRANTS AND AWARDS
2015 Teaching and Technology Innovation Award Social Sciences, UCI, to develop an online course
2012-13 President's Faculty Research Fellowships in the Humanities University of California, UC Humanities Research Institute, CA
2012-13 Research Fellow, IFK Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna, Austria
2012-12 Center for Global Peace and Citizenship, UCI, seed grant.
2007-08 Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, (Institute for Advanced Sciences/Studies) and guest fellow also at the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung (Center for Culture and Literature), Berlin, Germany.
2007-08 Junior Faculty Career Development Award, University of California, Irvine.
2004-05 Distinguished Senior Iranian Visiting Fellow, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, England
2002-04 Woodrow Wilson Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University.
Alto: Stanford University Press. Gold Medalist (in fiction) in the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), sponsored by the Independent Publisher Book Awards.
2014-15 Invited artist, Bid Book, Sienna’s Application for European Capital of Culture
2007Winner, Short Story Award for Ethnographic Fiction, Society of Humanistic Anthropology.
2007 Warring Souls: media, martyrdom and youth in post-Revolution Iran, Short-listed for the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Book Prize.
2007 Warring Souls: media, martyrdom and youth in post-Revolution Iran, Short-listed for the Cambridge University, Middle East Center, British-Kuwait Friendship Book Prize in Middle Eastern Society
GRANTS AND AWARDS
2015 Teaching and Technology Innovation Award Social Sciences, UCI, to develop an online course
2012-13 President's Faculty Research Fellowships in the Humanities University of California, UC Humanities Research Institute, CA
2012-13 Research Fellow, IFK Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna, Austria
2012-12 Center for Global Peace and Citizenship, UCI, seed grant.
2007-08 Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, (Institute for Advanced Sciences/Studies) and guest fellow also at the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung (Center for Culture and Literature), Berlin, Germany.
2007-08 Junior Faculty Career Development Award, University of California, Irvine.
2004-05 Distinguished Senior Iranian Visiting Fellow, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, England
2002-04 Woodrow Wilson Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University.
Appointments
2002-04 Woodrow Wilson Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University.
Kroc Institute at University of Notre Dame, Declined.
Kroc Institute at University of Notre Dame, Declined.
Research Abstract
Roxanne Varzi is a writer, artist, filmmaker and anthropologist. She was Born in Iran to an American mother and Iranian father and migrated to the U.S shortly after the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
In 1991 while on a year abroad at the American University in Cairo she returned to Iran for a short visit and found a country vibrantly alive with an exciting underground public culture. That short trip inspired her to return to Iran and live there for a year beginning a long set of journeys to Iran, the most recent of which was with her husband and three-year-old son who attended preschool there.
Varzi is currently a Professor of Anthropology and Film and Media Studies, Persian Studies and Religious Studies. She has a Ph.D. in Social Cultural Anthropology from Columbia. She was the recipient of the first Fulbright to Iran since the Revolution, and the youngest Distinguished Senior Iranian Visiting Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. She has also held a Woodrow Wilson Post-Doctoral Fellowship at New York University and a Markle Foundation New Media Fellow, at the Centre for Law, Media and Society, Wolfson College, Oxford University and sabbatical fellowships at the Wissenschaftskolleg/EUME and the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung (The Center for Advanced Studies) in Berlin and at the IFK in Vienna, Austria.
Her writing has been published in The Annals of Political and Social Science, Feminist Review, Public Culture, American Anthropologist, Eastern Art Report and the London Review of Books. She has been quoted in the LA Times, New York Times, Chronicle of Higher. Her short stories have appeared in two anthologies of Iranian-American writing as well as The New York Press and in Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly for which she won a Short Story Award for Fiction. She is the author of two books, Warring Souls: Media, Martyrdom and Youth in post-Revolution Iran, Duke University Press, 2006 and 2016 Independent Publishers Gold Medal Award-winning Novel Last Scene Underground: An ethnographic novel of Iran Stanford University Press. Her film, Plastic Flowers Never Die, 2009 is distributed by Documentary Educational Resources and has been shown in Festivals all over the world. Her sound installation “Whole World Blind” premiered at Soundwalk in Long Beach, and was installed in Berlin, Paris, Philadelphia, San Francisco and is featured permanently at Publicbooks.org. Her video Installation, Salton Sublime about finding the sublime among environmental degradation premiered in Berlin Germany in 2017. She is at work on her first play, Splinters of a Careless Alphabet.
In 1991 while on a year abroad at the American University in Cairo she returned to Iran for a short visit and found a country vibrantly alive with an exciting underground public culture. That short trip inspired her to return to Iran and live there for a year beginning a long set of journeys to Iran, the most recent of which was with her husband and three-year-old son who attended preschool there.
Varzi is currently a Professor of Anthropology and Film and Media Studies, Persian Studies and Religious Studies. She has a Ph.D. in Social Cultural Anthropology from Columbia. She was the recipient of the first Fulbright to Iran since the Revolution, and the youngest Distinguished Senior Iranian Visiting Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. She has also held a Woodrow Wilson Post-Doctoral Fellowship at New York University and a Markle Foundation New Media Fellow, at the Centre for Law, Media and Society, Wolfson College, Oxford University and sabbatical fellowships at the Wissenschaftskolleg/EUME and the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung (The Center for Advanced Studies) in Berlin and at the IFK in Vienna, Austria.
Her writing has been published in The Annals of Political and Social Science, Feminist Review, Public Culture, American Anthropologist, Eastern Art Report and the London Review of Books. She has been quoted in the LA Times, New York Times, Chronicle of Higher. Her short stories have appeared in two anthologies of Iranian-American writing as well as The New York Press and in Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly for which she won a Short Story Award for Fiction. She is the author of two books, Warring Souls: Media, Martyrdom and Youth in post-Revolution Iran, Duke University Press, 2006 and 2016 Independent Publishers Gold Medal Award-winning Novel Last Scene Underground: An ethnographic novel of Iran Stanford University Press. Her film, Plastic Flowers Never Die, 2009 is distributed by Documentary Educational Resources and has been shown in Festivals all over the world. Her sound installation “Whole World Blind” premiered at Soundwalk in Long Beach, and was installed in Berlin, Paris, Philadelphia, San Francisco and is featured permanently at Publicbooks.org. Her video Installation, Salton Sublime about finding the sublime among environmental degradation premiered in Berlin Germany in 2017. She is at work on her first play, Splinters of a Careless Alphabet.
Publications
Salton Sublime Preimered at and commissioned by the Ohrenhoch Gallery, Berlin, Germany.2017
Last Scene Underground: An Ethnographic Novel of Iran, Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.2016
Last Scene Underground: An Ethnographic Novel of Iran, Audible Books Edition.
The Whole World Blind, 30 minute looped sound installation on the power of war images. 2012
Documentary Film: Plastic Flowers Never Die, Dist, DER.org 2009
Warring Souls: Youth, Media and Martyrdom in post-Revolution Iran, Duke University Press, 2006
Grants
Fulbright 2000
Woodrow Wilson 2002
Professional Societies
American Anthropological Association
Middle East Studies Association
Society for Visual Anthropology
MRG Working Group on Religion in Public Sphere, UCHRI
Society for Humanistic Anthropology
American Ethnological society
Other Experience
Editorial Board Member
American Anthropologist 2016—pres
American Anthropologist 2016—pres
Board Member
Society For Humanistic Anthropology
Society For Humanistic Anthropology
Graduate Programs
Visual Studies
Research Centers
Jordan Center for Persian Studies
Religious Studies
Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=5393
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=5393
Last updated
09/26/2019
09/26/2019