Pardis Mahdavi is the author of Hyphen, part of Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series. Mahdavi is currently Dean of Social Sciences and Director of the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University (ASU). Prior to joining ASU, she was the Acting Dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Before coming to Denver, she was at Pomona College from 2006-2017 where she most recently served as professor and chair of anthropology, director of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College, as well as Dean of Women. Her research interests include academic freedom, diversity and inclusion in higher education, gendered labor, human trafficking, migration, sexuality, human rights, youth culture, transnational feminism and public health in the context of changing global and political structures. She has published five single authored books and one edited volume in addition to numerous journal and news articles. She has been a fellow at the Social Sciences Research Council, the American Council on Learned Societies, Google Ideas, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
EB: I loved reading your book Hyphen, part of Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series. What inspired you to write about this particular topic and how did this book come about?
PM: First, thank you for the kind words! And thank you for taking the time to read me, that means a great deal. This book was a confluence of two passions/fascinations/curiosities: first, I love the Object Lessons series; I think they are terrific books and love the way they are presented and how creative they are. Second, I have been thinking about questions of belonging for most of my life, but this was really amplified in 2016 when Trump came to the presidency. When the Muslim Ban was instated, that really unsettled me. I had been kicked out of my ancestral homeland. When Trump and his supporters would boom “send them back” a chill would go down my spine: where was I supposed to go back to? I had spent my whole life trying to fit on one side of my hyphenated identity—Iranian-American—or the other, but I never found belonging. Then I realized I could live inside the hyphen itself. And that inspired me to start researching hyphens. I was blown away when I learned that the hyphen was created to show belonging, and to create new words, concepts, beings. This was like soothing balm to my aching soul. So, I dove deeper.
EB: I love that. My favorite nonfiction is the type that blends the personal and the researched. I really enjoyed how Hyphen moved between the history of the punctuation mark, the stories of your three interview subjects, and your own personal story. How did you land on that structure, and how did you figure out the right balance as you wove together those three threads?
PM: This was very tricky. I had been working on questions of belonging and hyphenated Americans for some time. My students’ journeys that mirrored my own inspired me. But I was also drawn to the history of the hyphen and the power of orthography. This is where my amazing editors came in. I worked closely with Chris Schaberg and Steven Beschloss to find the perfect combination. They said to me, “hanging out with the ancient Greeks and Guttenberg is interesting, but your students’ voices more so.” So, we played with it. This came through a series of conversations where I threw out one structure, which featured more history, then another that featured more ethnography. As soon as I tried the ratio of 1:4 in a proposed table of contents, I could see the structure of the book like an architectural blueprint come to life!
EB: I was impressed how you could take a giant topic—such as the part of your personal story where you were interrogated and then deported from Iran—and write about it so directly and succinctly. That story alone could be a book-length work. How do you manage to write about something so big in so few words?
PM: It has taken me more than a decade to be able to write about my experiences in Iran. I had tucked them away in the deepest recesses of my brain. But in 2016 when my children were aching and afraid, and my students swallowed in a pain of uncertainty by the racist and Islamophobic rhetoric spewing out of our newly elected President, I knew it was time. Writing that one passage for Hyphen was all I could muster at the time—even that much made my stomach churn. But that opened something inside me that had been begging to come out. So, I’m happy to share with you that Hachette will be publishing my memoir, This Goes Out to the Underground, next year. That book tells the whole story and much more.
EB: Oh, wow! That’s so exciting. I can’t wait to read it, considering how much I loved reading this book. I feel like I learned so much from reading Hyphen—including fascinating details like how New York’s name is technically New-York. What was your strategy for researching this book, and do you have any advice on how not to fall into a research black hole?
PM: That might have been the hardest part of this process actually! I was working on this book as COVID hit and quarantine was setting in. While friends and family members were at loose ends, I coped with the stress of the time by diving into this exact rabbit hole. But then I would get on a Zoom call with my students, see their faces, recognize the fear that had gripped my own children in 2016, and that yanked me out of the rabbit hole. I started telling them about my research on the hyphen. I watched their faces light up and conversations spark. Those conversations some of the best moments of the early dark months of quarantine. They kept me grounded—my students and my kids. My son, Shayan, in particular, sat under my desk each morning as I would start writing and researching. I would tell him what I learned and study his seven-year-old face for responses.
EB: That’s great. It’s so helpful to talk through research with others to figure out what is interesting or not. Also, kids are the best—they have no filter and will always be very honest about what they think is boring! So, in addition to being a parent, I know you are a professor and dean as well as a writer. How do you think teaching and working with students has influenced you as a writer?
PM: As I said before, my students inspired this book in so many ways. Their struggles with identity, their ability to stretch their minds to join me in living inside the hyphen, this is what made this book possible. The dean part is trickier, and I think that it links to the question above. Part of being Dean is that I have to learn to filter out the noise. When you asked about not falling into a research black hole, part of that was time—being Dean means I have to be very disciplined with time—but part of it is figuring out what is the message, the takeaway. In that way I think the Dean skills may have helped me.
EB: How does your writing process differ when you are working on a personal work of nonfiction like Hyphen versus a more traditionally academic piece? Is it the same or is it different?
PM: Writing non-fiction is pure joy for me. I have spent a lot of my life trying to fit myself into a “traditional” academic mold. But just as I couldn’t fit on one side of the hyphen or the other, I found that even my academic writing veered toward the more literary—and those were always my favorite parts to write. Writing non-fiction gives me energy, something to look forward to everyday, and a sense of purpose. Writing Hyphen was as liberating for me as learning to live inside the hyphen. I guess you could say that I have found belonging as a non-fiction writer. And your community in particular, a Non-Men community of Non-Fiction writers—this is my dream come true.
EB: I love hearing that! So, I have to ask… any idea how many hyphens you used in the book?
PM: Not enough!!!
EB: [laughter] So, feel free to speak about writing Hyphen in particular or writing nonfiction in general, but what do you think is the most challenging part of writing nonfiction?
PM: I think the most challenging part of writing nonfiction is the delicate balance between narrative storytelling and research/argument. My favorite books strike the perfect tone—readable and informative. So, I strive to do the same. The other hard part for me is making myself stop. If it were up to me, I would write all day long!
EB: And what do you think is the most rewarding?
PM: The freedom to tell stories that stay with you. Being able to bring the voices of people who aren’t often in the limelight. And being able to write in an accessible way. I love knowing that this is a book that any number of people—not just academics—can pick up and enjoy. That to me is impact. And that is incredibly rewarding.
EB: Finally, what is a favorite passage of nonfiction by a fellow “non-man”?
PM: Probably my favorite nonfiction writer is Jasmin Darznik. Jasmin also writes fiction, and her style of writing is elegant, powerful, and draws you in. When I read Jasmin’s books, I feel like I have a good friend with me at all times. My favorite of her books is The Good Daughter. Here is a passage I love from that book:
We’d been a world of our own once, my mother Lili and I, a constant, intimate twosome beyond which I could imagine nothing, least of all myself. Then we came to America and I started turning into an American girl. That’s when she began telling me stories about The Good Daughter. The Good Daughter lived in Iran. She didn’t talk back—as I had learned to do in this kharob shodeh, this broken down place. Actually she didn’t talk much at all. The Good Daughter listened.