In the last several decades the mosque, or piety, movement has grown in strength in urban centers across the Islamic world. While we catch only a brief glimpse of this in the film, Ten, Abbas Kiarostami's response to his feminist critics, the film itself through its very form raises questions about this movement, about habit, repetition, and the aleatory.

Joan Copjec began studying modern English literature, earning a bachelor’s degree at Wheaton College (with a minor in classics) and a master’s at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she began her doctoral work. This work led her into cinema studies and an ever-expanding course of inquiry.

She entered the world of cinema studies via the Orson Welles Film School in Cambridge, Mass., and then moved to England to study in the Film Unit of the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London.

She has been a prolific scholar. She has written or edited 11 books, published nearly 60 essays in books and journals, and has given lectures at more than 160 conferences in the United States and internationally. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages.
Her most recent work, which is focused on the cinema of Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian filmmaker, and medieval Islamic philosophy, will be published in her next book, tentatively titled Cloud: Between Paris and Tehran.

Sponsored by the Program in Experimental Critical Theory

Cost : Free and open to the public.

Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television