Features

“Walls of Martyrdom”: Tehran's Propaganda Murals: By Fotini Christia; Largely closed to U.S. visitors for almost three decades, Tehran is the cryptic capital of an increasingly powerful and defiant Iran. Vast and densely populated, this Middle Eastern megalopolis makes for a rich urban topography, its mystique amplified by a shroud of chronic smog. Though landscape stimulants competing for the visitor's attention abound, none are more gripping than the city's propaganda murals. As dominant fixtures of Tehran's visual space, these state-sponsored murals are painted by artists close to the regime. Cast across the city's prominent avenues, on both private and public buildings, the murals are of a distinctive artistic style. Their sheer number and size, along with their powerful iconography and aesthetics, set me on a quest to systematically document them. My exhibit “Walls of Martyrdom”: Tehran's Propaganda Murals—a selection of over 130 images of Tehran's murals taken over the summer of 2006 during my affiliation with the University of Tehran—draws from the findings of this documentary exercise…; Read More

From the Director

: Members of the Center for International Affairs, 1959–1960. On November 15, 2007, the Weatherhead Center will begin a year-long commemoration of its first fifty years with a Warren and Anita Manshel Lecture to be delivered by the Most Reverend Dr. Desmond Tutu.; People commonly ask me whether I have a “vision” for the future of the Weatherhead Center. This question always makes me smile, and I usually start by saying, “To maintain and to enhance this Center's position as the world's premier research institution on international affairs.” Of course, who could argue with that goal? What most people mean when they ask me “the vision question” is, What do I think are the central issues with which the WCFIA should be concerned?…; Read More