100. Fragments of Utopia in Farangestan with Vahid Vahdat

This week's episode invites you to look back to the 19th century with four Persian travelers making their way through a modernized Europe. In their travel diaries, we see Europe from an Occidentalist gaze, which charges these Western spaces with eroticism, magic, and wonder. What can we learn about Persian utopia from these "farangi," or foreign, narratives? Join us, for this discussion with Vahid Vahdat, assistant professor of architecture and interior design at The School of Design and Construction, Washington State University and author of the newly published Occidentalist Perceptions of European Architecture in Nineteeth-Century Persian Travel Diaries: Travels in Farangi Space.