REMEMBERING THE PALESTINE GROUP: GLOBAL ACTIVISM, FRIENDSHIP, AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION

The Palestine Group was a loosely connected collection of young anti-Shah activists some of whom were arrested and tried publically in 1970 for the crime of acting against the Pahlavi monarchy and Iran's national security. Their plight became global, receiving support from anticolonial figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre. But while they played an important role in inspiring the revolutionary generation, in the historiography of the 1979 revolution and that of the global south, their story has been mostly forgotten. This article argues for remembering the Palestine Group by focusing on two facets of their prerevolutionary activism: the importance of a connection to the anti-imperial/colonial struggles that spread from “Asia to Africa”; and the centrality ofmaḥfilīpolitics (friendship circles) in addition totashkīlātī(organizational) politics, which the historiography has traditionally emphasized. It demonstrates that as resistance shifted frommaḥfiltotashkīlāt,it also shifted from a global struggle where Iran was one node out of many, to a nationalized struggle.

A Critical Encyclopedia of Heterosex

Building on theoretical discussions regarding the institution of heterosexuality and heteronormativity, this chapter demonstrates how language and heterosexual sex (that is, heterosex) are intimately intertwined. The chapter teases out the ways in which the norms of heterosexuality have changed over time yet also remained the same in several fundamental ways. The first section maps the broad discursive conditions that shape dominant norms of contemporary heterosexuality in Anglo-Western contexts. The second section demonstrates the cultural imperatives that govern the desires, norms, and acts of heterosex, outlining how they create specific modes of being and doing in everyday practice. Finally, the conclusion considers the possibility that recent global activism may lead to a revamping of gendered norms and their tired rigidity.