Events & Interviews

Video Trailer for Performing Beauty.

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Mehran Haghighi’s Performing Beauty is a documentary that explores the history and cultural significance of Nasta’liq calligraphy, the iconic script that has been closely tied to Persian artistic expression since the 14th century. The film brings together expert perspectives from historians, calligraphers, curators, and artists to weave a narrative that spans centuries, highlighting Nasta'liq's evolution from its origins under the Timurid dynasty to its widespread influence across the Ottoman Empire, Mughal India, and beyond. More than a historical account, Performing Beauty offers a nuanced exploration of how Nasta'liq serves as both an artistic and spiritual practice, its connection to Persian poetry, and its representation of Iranian identity. The documentary examines how Nasta'liq continues to resonate with the Iranian diaspora, providing a bridge to cultural heritage for those living outside of Iran.

Conversation with Hadi Mohamed Al-Lawati, February 2024.

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The Green Sea of Heaven: Eighty Ghazals from the Diwan of Hafiz, interview from Sufism: An Inquiry

Music & Literature interview by Eugene Ostashevsky

"ETGJr: This afternoon, in 2020, I see the convergence [between the military and Tibetan material]. The Tibetan manuals–military or religious–are about deadly ground, about threatening beings. They offer advice in the face of dismemberment, of vanishing utterly. They offer ways to locate and identify those who seek to harm you. Here is how to map the sources of danger (demons or enemy batteries) hidden in the landscape. Here's the right way to build a trench in frozen ground. Here's an amulet. Here's how to pre-register artillery. Here's a charm to prevent rain. The manuals want you to believe that if you follow the instructions you will come through all this, and be safe. None of it could keep a soldier safe. That's the intense grief."

TriQuarterly Online, interview by Reginald Gibbons

“In January, when I received advance proofs of Liz Gray’s long poem Salient, I was utterly taken by the uniqueness of the work. It offers the reader a kind of montage, not only as the reader moves through it, piece by piece, poem by poem, but also in how it juxtaposes two wholly different cultural realms and histories: the horrific British military offensives in Flanders fields in 1917, and medieval Tibetan tantric texts on protective magic. I wanted to know how Gray had found her way to writing this book, and wanted to understand the energies of such a seemingly improbable fusion. I was curious also about how the book evolved over time into its final and ingenious literary form.”

Conversation between Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. and Reginald Gibbons, poet, critic, and translator (Ancient Greek, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian) on the faculty at Northwestern. The interview in full, accompanied by two poems from the book, is online at The TriQuarterly Review.