Spotlight Detail

UCI Jordan Center for Persian Studies new Scholar-in-Residence, Ryan Homafar

We are happy to announce that Dr. Ryan Homafar has joined UCI Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture as a new Scholar-in-Residence.

Dr. Ryan Homafar’s interests and activities are diverse. He has worked in the fields of poetry, literature, art, philosophy, sociology, music, and cinema. He has published three books of poetry titled "Unripe Lemon Fragrance", "What Happened on the Orange's Shirt" and "The Birdless World and the Wind on the Evening Table". Also, his two academic dissertations are entitled as follows; "Social Values in Contemporary Iranian Poetry" and "Structures and Deep Structures in Iranian Folk Tales" have been the result of his reflection in this field.

Dr. Homafar started playing the piano as a child and then pursued playing the Iranian piano with Javad Maroufi, a great Iranian composer and musician. In addition to teaching and studying at various universities, he established a music academy to teach music to those who were interested. He also established the first music association in Shiraz, inviting famous Iranian music masters with whom he organized many concerts and art lectures. Ryan's extensive activities at the Shiraz Music Association led to his election as a member of the board of the Iranian Music Association. He has published a book in the field of music titled "Comprehensive plan of Iranian music", which is the first and still the only book in the field of comprehensive planning and design of Iranian music. In the field of cinema, he has taken free filmmaking courses, a filmmaking course at the Young Cinema Association of Iran, and finally a filmmaking course at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran. His book, "Discourse Constructions in Contemporary Iranian Cinema", which examines the sociology of Iranian cinema, concludes the final stages of Ryan’s publications.

He has obtained not only a bachelor's, a master's, and a Ph.D. in sociology, but was also able to complete his education in four other Ph.D. programs: philosophy and literature, strategic management, art research, and cultural planning. Ryan's diverse education enables him to teach a variety of subjects in a wide range of disciplines: philosophy, sociology, art, law, management, and literature. With more than twenty years of teaching experience at Iranian universities, he now resides in the United States.