Research Papers / Articles

‘Chubby girls Don’t End up Political Prisoners’ Interview with Ana Diamond and Richard Ratcliffe It was the summer of 2016 when they took Ana Diamond for execution. She was 20 years old and being held in solitary confinement in Iran’s notorious Evin prison on espionage, blasphemy and corruption on earth charges. It was around 4...

*All names have been changed * This interview occurred before the Trump presidency. It’s 5pm on an April afternoon and somewhere in deep Alabama I’m being driven into the woods by the Ku Klux Klan. Two ‘Loyal White Knights of the Klan’ are clad in all-black. They are my guards. My eyes have seen the...

How rock ‘n’ roll celebrates and idolises abusive rock stars Just like there was a code of silence in Hollywood regarding Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse and harassment, just like there has been a code of silence within the catholic priesthood when it comes to child rape, there is a code of silence in the rock...

At the foot of Sabalan mountain, in Northern Iran, deep in the valley, by the famous ski resort, is a bubbling mineral hot spring gushing calcium, potassium and us.  Tonight under the stars, we all sink into the natural hot waters, aching joints melting in the thick soup of the water that fizzles on our…

‘The process of Othering has everything to do with knowledge, and power acting through knowledge to achieve a particular political agenda in its goal of domination’ (Said 1978: xiii).   The non-Western woman (and more recently since 9/11, the Muslim woman), has been produced as a singular monolithic subject within academic frameworks, and in Left...