Taking Michael Druffel’s FIQWS class my first semester of college was probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Not only did I meet a great teacher and my favorite classmates, I also learned about a bunch of writing skills that I know I will carry with me for the rest of my life. One of the most important lessons for me probably was the rhetorical triangle of writing. The rhetorical triangle of writing had three main parts; the audience, me (the writer), and the content I’m trying to get across. It taught me how to address my readers and make sure what I am trying to say is reaching them.

I’ve also never written a conference paper ever before. I thought I knew most types of writing but I learned that conference papers are read out in front of a large audience and should be rather casual. And in many cases, it’s good to keep them lighthearted.

The thing that will always stick with me the most is making your own definition of things and standing by what your thesis is. I know that this will earn me more respect in the literary world and later on in my profession (I want to pursue a career in business) as well. Not only will it help me with these affairs, but it’s going to help me in verbal arguments as well; I know that as long as I declare my certifications and that what I believe is true, I will be right.

Mr. Druffel managed to teach each and every one of us something new and that is very difficult in a writing class. If I could take this class all over again, I most definitely would.

There were many different journals I would be able to submit my article on Anti-Iran in the United States to. I researched three in order to decide which one would be perfect for me.

The three journals I researched were:

The Journal of Undergraduate International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison 

Submissions
 

The Journal of Politics and Society by the H elvidius Group of Columbia University 

https://www.helvidius.org/submit/ 

The Journal of Law, Leadership, and Society at Pennsylvania State University 

https://sites.psu.edu/dialectics/submissions-2/ 

The first journal I researched (The Journal of Undergraduate International Studies) wants to publish undergraduate articles related to international themes and topics such as international conflict and conflict resolution, history, comparative politics and economics, global security, international health, and many more. This would be great for me, considering my article would be about conflict between the United States and Iran when it comes to Anti-Iran films in the United States. Submissions generally range from 5 to 20 pages, so I would have to do a lot more research and try to produce much more insight. Also, the journal requires that I eliminate all author-identifying information. Luckily, I don’t have much as of now. The journal also requires Chicago Manual with Indo-Arabic numeral rather than Roman for citations. I also have my citations like this already. Finally, I must convert my citations and footnotes to endnotes. This will be very simple.

The second journal I looked at (The Journal of Politics and Society). This journal is asking for contribution to the global dialogue on problems of politics, economics, public policy, social phenomena, international relations, and law. This is great because once again, I am focusing on the relation between Iran and the United States, the phenomena being put on Iran by the United States, and how law could affect it. Also, the suggested length is 20–50 pages. As of now I only have 3 or so, which can be lengthened, but there’s a limit to information on this topic, so it won’t be able to reach 20 pages, especially not 50. For this reason, I would not be submitting to The Journal of Politics and Society by the Helvidius group of Columbia University.

Finally, I investigated the Journal of Law, Leadership, and Society at Pennsylvania State University. They’re currently looking for papers that identify important societal and global issues and offer creative solutions or specific recommendations for addressing the challenges. This would be good for my needs because my paper poses a solution for the United States’ anti-Iran movies. And the conflict they pose between the United States and Iran is also addressed as an important societal and global issue. Also, the journal asks for 2,000 to 5,000 words, which would be great because that’s just about the length my paper would be. I would have to make a cover page with a title, a biographical sketch, and my contact information. I don’t have this yet, but it is doable. Finally, the citation style required is American Psychological Association (APA). Mine is currently cited with Chicago style, however it would be easy to switch the citations.

Overall, I think the third journal would be perfect for me and my paper on anti-Iran films in the United States. I will be changing my paper to fit the Journal of Law, Leadership, and Society at Pennsylvania State University.

11/26/2019

To whom it may concern,

My article is about the prejudice created by Hollywood against Iran and Persian overall. It addresses the stereotypes made and poses a solution on how to get rid of these stereotypes.

Many different works ae cited, ranging from other articles, different movies, the opinions of critics, et cetera.

Thank you so much,

Sumaiya Rahman

MANUSCRIPT

Stereotypes on Iran in film in the United States: How to eliminate the prejudice against Iran created by stereotypes in media

Many people think of Iran as a very dirty nation full of poverty. Many also think of Iran as oppressive and harsh, religion-wise. Quite a few people also seem to think of Iran as a pro-terrorist country. People have the misconception that Iran is unworthy of travel, or even that it’s impossible to go there. This is called Anti-Iranian sentiment, which is also known as Anti-Persian sentiment (Persophobia, or Iranophobia)1. A question many of you may be wondering is, why is that so? What may have led our nation to having this false information? Many scholars of Iranian politics and/or media seem to think it’s because of American media. More specifically, it is caused by American film. There are many American films out there that provide viewers with unfortunate misbeliefs.

These tv series were just the beginning for anti-Iran media in the United States. There’s also a great deal of movies/films that do so as well.

For instance, there’s the movie “300”. This film came out in 2006 and was about a war inn 480 B.C. going on between Persia, led by King Xerxes and Greece. In the film the Persian army was depicted as hideous and almost demon-like. The film sparked outrage in Iran and offended many Persians2. News headlines such as “Hollywood has opened a new front in the war against Iran” were circulating all over the world.

There’s also the film called “Not Without My Daughter” which came out in 1991. In this film, a woman who married an Iranian goes back to Iran with her husband and their daughter for what was thought to be a vacation. The woman soon finds out that her husband doesn’t plan on letting her or her daughter leave. Yet another time, the culture of Iran and Muslim Iranians were mis portrayed greatly.3 The only Iranians portrayed positively were those against the Islamic Republic and its regime. The rest were shown once again, as demonic and evil. When writing on this film, movie critic Roger Ebert said, “their (the film’s) negative portrait of fundamentalist Muslims would be released at a time when we seem about to go to war with some of them.”4 Unfortunately, this was another movie that succumbed to stereotypes on Iranian people.

Finally, there is the 2012 film, “Argo.” The movie “Argo” is about hostages being taken in Iran from the United States embassy by a bunch of Iranian Islamists. This movie blatantly promotes the idea that Iranians are terrorists and the perceptions of Iran of many unknowing were changed by this. This movie was rated amazingly by critics, receiving an approval rating of 96%, and an overall rating of 8.39/10 on Rotten Tomatoes5. And the Roger Ebert from before rated it with 4/4 stars.6 Make sure you get this straight, this movie, about won the Academy Award for Best Picture, announced by Michelle Obama from the White House. People in Iran were divided over this movie, the government was upset and wanted to censor it, however many citizens were against the government, so they watched it illegally anyways.

When these movies are released and there’s a lot of press around them It’s strange that so many movies have been made against Iran, that also tend to spread misinformation about the nation. Even on IMDB, a website that keeps record of movies and celebrities, there’s a whole list of Anti-Iranian Movies.7 This just shows that people notice the anti-Iran movies, but we’re still not doing anything to address them. Six years ago, in March 2013, when “Argo” came out, Iran began planning on suing Hollywood. French lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre was hired by Tehran in order to bring attention to distortion of the image of the Islamic Republic. After much deliberation it was found that there were many other anti-Iran films produced in the United States, such as those that I had mentioned before. So, what happened to this case? It didn’t go through. Quoting directly from Foreign Policy, there was no actual case because, “To prove defamation, you have to not only establish that what is presented as fact is actually false (a difficult task when dealing with a partially fictionalized movie), but also that the plaintiff’s reputation was injured, causing financial damages.”8 This made it quite clear to me and a few other of my fellow scholars that a lawsuit is not the key to solving this issue.

There are only a few different options that we have right now when it comes to the United States and its anti-Iran films. For instance, we can just let the issue sit and keep growing. There are already tensions growing between our two countries, so we might as well just fight it out with war. This is obviously unreasonable, and we should be trying to ease as much tension with Iran as possible. OR, we can try to go about removing the movies. Although most of them have been out for quite some time already and that wouldn’t make much of a difference.

The right way of handling this problem would be to have historians fact check movies before they’re put out, and perhaps neutral persons who can differentiate between offensive parts of a movie and the informative ones

“Hollywood has thirty anti-Iranian movies in the offing with the subject of hostility towards Iran’s historical and Islamic identity…The subject of making various movies has directly targeted not only Iran’s religious and historical identity but also the country’s social values including hospitality in an attempt to show hostility towards the Islamic Republic…There are certain political objectives behind a number of movies under the pretext of creating art…The controversial anti-Iranian Hollywood film ‘300’, made by Zack Snyder, is an example of such films.”9

*contact writer for citations*

Sumaiya Rahman, Gender and Politics in Iranian Film

CFP: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2019/09/16/international-conference-on-gender-studies-%E2%80%9Cgender-narratives%E2%80%9D

Proposal

There have been many great films put out in Iran over the years. They’ve gotten a wide assortment of awards, such as Oscars, Golden Globes, a Satellite award, and many other accolades since the 1960’s. The Iranian New Wave occurred from the 1960’s to the 1970’s, right before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. It was in response to the cultural, societal, and political pressures of the time. During this cinematic era, many new directors came out, especially women and they haven’t stopped producing wonderful arts that showcase gender and politics in Iran. Ever since the Iranian New Wave, there have been whirlwinds of change in the gender and politics and that is shown through Iranian film that is put out daily. Some of the great women directors in Iranian film include Marjane Satrapi, Samira Makhmalbaf, Niki Karimi, and a very notable one is Rakhshan Banietemad. Banietemad produced many iconic films such as Canary Yellow, Tales, Nargess, and many more. In Nargess and many of her other works Banietemad challenges censorship and she was even sentenced to prison at one point. There are not many works observing women and politics in Iranian film, and I would like to discuss Banietemad’s works and how revolutionary they were.

Banietemad and other female director’s works were insurgent after the Iranian New Wave. I would love to present the diversity and showcasing of gender and politics in Iran over the years and its changes through film.

Biography

Sumaiya Rahman graduated from Yale with a master’s in gender studies and minored in anthropology. She has always been very passionate about cinema in her own time and has been eager to deeply discover how gender and politics is and has been portrayed in film throughout the world.