Professor Emeritus Amin Banani, UCLA - April 17, 2005      Dr. Amin Banani is Emeritus Professor of History and Persian Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a former Chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and a former Acting Director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies. He received his BA (1947) and PhD (1959) from Stanford University and his MA (1949) from Columbia University. He is the author of The Modernization of Iran (1961) and editor and contributing author of The Epic of Kings (1967), Islam and Its Cultural Divergence (1971), Iran Faces the Seventies (1971), Individualism and Conformity in Classical Islam (1977), Communications Policy for National Development (1977), State and Society in Iran (1978), Nation and Ideology (1981), The Bride of Acacias (1982), Mysticism and Poetry in Islam: The Heritage of Rumi (1987), Persian Literature (1988), Tahereh: A Portrait in Poetry (2004), and numerous articles and reviews on the history and culture of Persia. Professor Banani has served on the Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, the Executive Council of the Society for Iranian Studies, and as Vice President of the American Association of Iranian Studies. He combines history and poetry in his research and teaching. He is an avid devotee of music, Eastern and Western. |
