Description:

"Last Illusions: Porochista Khakpour on Writing, Myth, and the Refashioning of History"

Iranian-American novelist, essayist, journalist, and professor Porochista Khakpour discusses her own personal history and cultural background as well as contemporary Iranian-American identity and pan-Middle-Easter consciousness in the post-9/11 era. Khakpours talk will focus on the elements that generated the narratives of her two novels: Sons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove 2007)--a realist examination of the split between an Iranian father at midlife and an Iranian-American son at quarter-life in the pre-and-post-9/11 era--and The Last Illusion (Bloosmbury 2014)--a fabulist modern-day coming-of-age retelling of the Persian Book of Kings (Shahnameh) story of Zal, here as a feral child still struggling with his avian identity in a Y2K to 9/11 era NYC--as well as discussing her personal essays (most notably as a series for The New York Times) on Iranian-America family life and popular culture.

Lunch will be provided.

Co-sponsors: Dept. of Art History; Dept. of English; Center for the Writing Arts