Words, Not Swords: Iranian Women and the Freedom Movement

Born and raised in Teheran, Iran, Farzaneh Milani attended French primary and secondary schools. She earned her BA in French Literature in 1970 from California State University at Hayward. Transferring to the University of California in Los Angeles, she completed her graduate studies in Comparative Literature in 1979. Her dissertation, Forugh Farrokhzad: A Feminist Perspective, was a critical study of the poetry of a pioneering Iranian woman poet. Milani taught Persian Language and Literature at UCLA for four years before coming to the University of Virginia in 1986. Past president of the Association of Middle Eastern Women Studies in America, Milani was the recipient of Alumni Teaching Award in 1998. She is the author of Words, Not Swords: Iranian women writers and the Freedom of Movement, Veils and Words: The Emerging Voice of Iranian Women Writers, and A Cup of Sin: Selected Poems of Simin Behbahani (edited and translated with Kaveh Safa). She has served as the guest editor of Nimeye Digar, IranNameh, and Journal of Iranian Studies. Milani has written some 100 articles, book chapters, introductions, and afterwards in Persian and English and lectured at over 150 colleges and universities nationally and internationally. Her poems have been published in Nimeye Digar, Par, Barrayand, Daneshju, Omid, and Avaye Portland. Milani teaches courses in Persian literature and cinema, Women and Islam, and cross-cultural studies of women.