Teaching lecturer and acclaimed writer, translator, librettist, creator, director, curator, performer, and producer Niloufar Talebi recently returned to the U.S. after six months abroad as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Fellow affiliated with Ilia State University in the country of Georgia and researching her next book.
Talebi has been teaching lecturer at PSU since 2015 where she teaches the popular course, “Writing and the Creative Process.” Although it is technically an English elective, Talebi assigns various creative exercises designed to guide students in discovering their creativity and the ways in which their unique processes work, with the goal of helping students develop critical thinking skills to serve them in all future endeavors. Talebi did several readings and presentations during her Fulbright tenure at Ilia State University as well as at Writers’ House of Georgia, the Tbilisi International Book Festival and the Tbilisi International Festival of Literature.
“Georgian students and audiences are highly interested in the American ways of thinking, our culture of entrepreneurship, and our international outreach,” said Talebi.
The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program is a competitive program that expands perspectives through academic and professional advancement and cross-cultural dialogue. The program offers over 800 awards in more than 135 countries for U.S. citizens to teach, conduct research and carry out professional projects around the world. College and university faculty, as well as artists and professionals from a wide range of fields can join over 400,000 Fulbrighters who have come away with enhanced skills, new connections, and greater mutual understanding. “The ability to think critically is essential to everything we do,” said Talebi. “I present my students with scenarios from everyday life to demonstrate how our thought processes influence outcomes.
Talebi is a British-born, Iranian-American, author and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Self-Portrait in Bloom (l’Aleph, March 28, 2019), which breaks with the memoir form and presents a portrait of the Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou and his poetry in her award-winning translation. Self-Portrait in Bloom is used in the classroom to teach cross-genre and hybrid writing. Talebi’s related opera project, Abraham in Flames in collaboration with composer Aleksandra Vrebalov and director Roy Rallo, and a TEDx Berkeley talk are part of the multidisciplinary project inspired by the life and work of Ahmad Shamlou that includes Self-Portrait in Bloom. The opera premiered in San Francisco in May 2019 and landed on the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Best in Classical Music Performances of 2019” list.
“I went to Georgia to write a book that I had planned for some time and which I am still working on, but the experience sparked inspiration for another book which has been gushing out of me,” said Talebi. “Being in Georgia triggered the missing element that is connecting all the threads that will go into this book.” This new work examines how the notion of Home is often exploited as a form of othering in the guise of inclusion.
Talebi will be in conversation about her work in progress with the artist and photographer Kija Lucas – whose recent exhibition centers around her search for Home as a mixed race American – during a virtual event at the San Francisco Public Library.
Talebi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and spent time in New Hampshire during the summers of her college years.
Photo caption: Plymouth State University teaching lecturer and acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Niloufar Talebi, shown at Tbilisi’s Mushtaid garden, the former home of a 19th-century Persian religious leader in Georgia, recently returned to the U.S. after six months abroad as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Fellow affiliated with Ilia State University in the country of Georgia and researching her next book. Photo credit 27xIIIa.
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