Keshavarz, Fatemeh

Fatemeh Keshavarz is a professor of Persian literature and the director of the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Maryland. She completed her studies at Shiraz University and at the University of London. She taught at Washington University in St. Louis for over twenty years, where she chaired the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from 2004 to 2011. In 2012, Keshavarz joined the University of Maryland as the Roshan Institute Chair in Persian Language and Literature, and director of the Roshan Institute Center for Persian Studies. Keshavarz is the author of several award-winning books, including Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi (University of South Carolina Press, 1998), Recite in the Name of the Red Rose (University of South Carolina Press, 2006), and a book of literary analysis and social commentary titled Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran (University of North Carolina Press, 2007). She has also published other books and numerous journal articles. Keshavarz is a published poet in Persian and English and an activist for peace and justice. She was invited to speak at the United Nations General Assembly on the significance of cultural education. Her National Public Radio show, “The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi,” earned her the Peabody Award in 2008. In the same year, she received the Herschel Walker Peace and Justice Award.

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