The TISHK Center for Kurdistan Studies is pleased to announce its thirteenth seminar in the 2025 series, entitled “Gender-Power Relations in Traditional and Transnational Kurdish Music”.

The seminar will be presented by Dr. Parang Farazmand, Scientific Assistant at Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.

This seminar explores, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the relationship between power and gender in Kurdish music scene. It examines how women are represented in Kurdish musical forms and lyrics, as well as the ways Kurdish folklore conceptualizes women in comparison to non-Kurdish ideologies of gender. A further focus lies on the performance and representation of gender across different domains of Kurdish music, both within Kurdistan and in the diaspora.

In addition, the seminar discusses the intersections of religion, ideology, and Kurdish nationalism, as well as the emergence of a new feminist movements in Kurdish diasporic music. The discussion is grounded in theoretical frameworks of gender studies, performance studies, and diaspora studies, in dialogue with musicological and ethnomusicological perspectives.

The seminar will be moderated by Shahla Dabaghi, member of the editorial board of the TISHK Magazine.

The seminar will take place on Sunday, September 28, 2025, at 18:00 (Berlin time) and will be held in Kurdish. The session will include a 10-minute introduction, a 30-minute presentation, a 25-minute Q&A session, and a 10-minute panel discussion and concluding remarks. Participants can join via Zoom using the provided link.

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