Introduction: Activism, Scholarship, and Shaping History

Abstract

The idea for this roundtable emerged from a special session held at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) in Denver in December 2022. As nationwide protests swept over Iran, many MESA members voiced support for organizing a public conversation that addressed various aspects of the Woman, Life, Freedom (WLF, Zan, Zendegi, Azadi) uprising. We thank MESA president, Eve Troutt Powell, for supporting this last-minute addition to the program. We are also very grateful to IJMES editor, Joel Gordon, for publishing these essays and enabling ongoing conversations about the WLF movement.