Book Talk: Tehrangeles Dreaming
Farzenh Hemmasi, University of Toronto
May 22, 2020 · TBD
Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies
A virtual book launch and conversation with author Farzenh Hemmasi, Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Toronto.
Los Angeles, called Tehrangeles because it is home to the largest concentration of Iranians outside of Iran, is the birthplace of a distinctive form of postrevolutionary pop music. Created by professional musicians and media producers fleeing Iran’s revolutionary-era ban on “immoral” popular music, Tehrangeles pop has been a part of daily life for Iranians at home and abroad for decades. In Tehrangeles Dreaming Farzaneh Hemmasi draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Los Angeles and musical and textual analysis to examine how the songs, music videos, and television made in Tehrangeles express modes of Iranianness not possible in Iran.
