Public Lecture by Mansour Farhang

Dr. Mansour Farhang is Professor of International Relations at Bennington College

The Lecture is titled: The Struggle for Democracy in Iran: Cultural Impediments to Pluralism

The reception is at 6 pm, followed by the lecture at 7 pm.

Mansour Farhang has a Ph.D. in political science from Claremont Graduate School. In the 1970s, he taught in the Government Department at California State University, Sacramento. Following the 1979 revolution in Iran, he was an ambassador to the United Nations, involved with international mediators to settle the Iran-Iraq war. During this period, he wrote and spoke about the threat of religious extremism. In June 1981, following the violent suppression of political dissidents, he was forced to leave Iran. He then returned to the United States to become a research fellow and lecturer at Princeton University. Since 1983 he has been teaching international relations and Middle Eastern politics at Bennington College in Vermont.

He is the author of two books and dozens of articles, in English and Persian, published in both academic journals and popular periodicals. His opinion pieces have appeared in a variety of newspapers, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Christian Science Monitor. His third book, ATheology in Power: Reflections on the Iranian Revolution is near completion. He has been a human rights activist since his undergraduate days in California. Currently, he serves on the advisory board of Human Rights Watch/Middle East and is a designated speaker for the Vermont Council on the Humanities. He has lectured at many universities and colleges across the country and is a member of the Columbia University Middle Eastern Seminar. He has also been a participant in the seminars of Council on Foreign Relations and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has appeared as a guest on numerous radio and television programs, including PBS News Hour, ABC’s Night Line, Bill Moyer’s Journal, 60-Minutes, CBS’s Face the Nation and CNN. He is a regular commentator on the Persian broadcasting of both BBC and Radio France International.

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