Lessons of Towfigh: Multi-day seminar with prolific Iranian satarist Abbas Towfigh

Event details

Jun 27 - Jul 4, 2025
6:00PM -8:00PM EDT
Online and in-person (Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations)
Bancroft Building (Room 304) 4 Bancroft Ave, Toronto, ON M5S 1C1
$50

Have questions about this event? Contact Bilal Hashmi at admin.eomi@utoronto.ca

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Hosted by the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies, this four-part seminar will delve into questions of censorship, the politics of humour and the function of satire as critique.

Presented by: Faculty of Arts & Science

Other Event Programming

Abbas Towfigh reading from one of his publications to an audience.

“Criticism in the Age of Censorship: Learning from the Invaluable Experience of Towfigh Satirical Journal.” This four part series will be presented in Persian with English translation.

Satirist Abbas Towfigh will reflect on 50 years of lessons gleaned from Towfigh (1922-1972) — the single most influential satirical journal in the modern history of Iran. Hosted by the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies, this four-part seminar will delve into questions of censorship, the politics of humour and the function of satire as critique.

Abbas Towfigh is the doyen of Iranian satirists. Former editor, publisher and proprietor of the banned magazine Towfigh — launched in 1922 by Hossein Towfigh — Abbas is a cartoonist and humorist, a Sorbonne- trained historian of the Persian-language press and a shrewd polemicist.

All ticket sales support the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto.