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Visiting Fellows Enhance Campus Conversations

One of America’s foremost political scientists and one of Iran’s most accomplished - and controversial - writers are spending the academic year at Boston College

By Ed Hayward   | Chronicle Staff

One of America’s foremost political scientists and one of Iran’s most accomplished — and controversial — contemporary writers are spending the academic year at Boston College as the inaugural visiting fellows of the Institute for Liberal Arts and the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy.

James Q. Wilson, whose works on subjects ranging from marriage to street crime to contemporary US politics and government, have made him a towering figure in American arts and letters, will serve as senior visiting fellow at the Clough Center.

Iranian writer Shahriar Mandanipour, who was subject to threats, harassment, censorship and an attempted assassination for speaking out against the government, is at the Institute for Liberal Arts, founded last year to connect scholarship across multiple disciplines.

The presence of scholars, writers and artists who have earned international achievements reveal the powerful impact institutes and centers can have on the rich intellectual traditions of the University, said College of Arts and Sciences Dean David Quigley, founding director of ILA.

“The Clough Center and the Institute for Liberal Arts hope to build on the success of the first two visiting fellows with a broad range of
visiting scholars, artists and writers,” said Quigley. “The chance for Shahriar Mandanipour and James Q. Wilson to join BC for the year
presented itself, so we took advantage of the chance to bring them both to campus to advance the institute and the center and work with students and faculty at BC over the course of the academic year.”

Wilson, who has held professorships at Harvard and UCLA, delivered his first lecture Monday night as part of the Clough Center speaker series. He will present another lecture next semester and lead one seminar for students each semester. He is currently at work on a revised edition of American Government, the most popular political science text in the country, editing a book of essays on crime and public policy, editing a collection of his own essays and researching a book about the effect of economic stimulus funding.

“I’m trying to keep all these balls in the air simultaneously,” said Wilson, who on Monday presented the talk “Thinking About Crime, Again — What Have We Learned?”

“I’m looking forward to my projects here at Boston College in the year ahead.” Mandanipour left his native Iran for a university fellowship in 2006 and has not returned since. His wife and daughter have been unable to secure a US visa and are living in Malaysia — the latest in a series of hardships the editor, essayist, short story writer and novelist has experienced.

In his home country, his literary and political activities led to harassment, threats and censorship by Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Guidance. Between 1992 and 1998, the government prevented him from publishing his work.

The author of 12 books, Mandanipour this year published his first book translated into English, the novel Censoring an Iranian Love Story.

“It is the first novel I have written without feeling the pressure of censorship – or the darkness of censorship,” said Mandanipour, who
wrote the book in Farsi, though it cannot be published in Iran. Mandanipour is looking forward to speaking on campus on a range of
topics such as politics, the Middle East and the craft of writing.

“I am very excited about this opportunity to be at Boston College and to meet faculty and students,” Mandanipour said. “It is also a great opportunity to write another novel and that is something I am doing at the moment.”

Ed Hayward can be reached at ed.hayward@bc.edu