My earliest sense of home was complicated by a ghost of a home elsewhere -- Iran, a place that feels out of reach. The country that I left behind at the age of eleven, as it got embroiled in the Islamic Revolution, no longer exits. As exiles we are left...

Few destinations have preserved the allure of the past so completely that you can roam the streets and feel as if you have gone back in time. Venice is such a place, the past is alive and vibrant in this magical city where some things seem everlasting: the sound of...

It was 2:30 p.m. on Monday, June 15th and my interview with Shirin Neshat, one of the most significant contemporary artists working today, took on a surreal and symbolic note right from the start. This petite powerhouse, whose striking and poetic work has garnered international acclaim and recognition, came out...

In 2008 a national public opinion survey found that two thirds of all Americans do not personally know an Iranian American. As a result, it suggested, the public's overall impression of Iranian Americans is largely based on the reductive one-dimensional image of Iranians found in the media and in reports...

On Tues April 21st, at exactly 10 am, the entire nation of Israel stopped as sirens sounded from Haifa to the Golan Heights commemorating the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. As one might expect, these two minutes were very powerful -- nothing like this happens in the...