2023-10-24_Into-The-COLAverse-Podcast_Faegheh_master

[00:00:00] Frederick: Welcome to Into the Colaverse, a podcast that takes us on the unique journeys of faculty in the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin. Join me, your host, Frederick Luis Aldama, as we learn of the many ways that our faculty and their cutting edge work is transforming the world today.

It is my great honor to be here. For the Into the Colaverse podcast with Faegheh Shirazi, professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, welcome!

[00:00:38] Faegheh: Thank you very much for inviting me.

[00:00:41] Frederick: I am just blown away at both your research, your, your life, your work, your actual art, your creating as well, um, along with everything else that you do, um, Fehi.

And I wanted this, what a journey, you know, and I know You know, it starts in Iran, and then moves you to Texas, and eventually to the University of Houston, where you finished an interior design degree in, you know, in the mid 70s, went on to um, an MS in textile science, and then, interestingly, a PhD, um, in the mid 80s.

At the Ohio State University, but can you tell us, um, you know, I want to know more about this journey and it’s taken you to these incredible books that you’ve been publishing research articles and also your own art, painting and textile making. Yes.

[00:01:51] Faegheh: Should I start? From Iran, obviously. Okay. Um, the era that I grew up, it still was under Pahlavi dynasty, the second shah of Iran, the monarchy, and, uh, I did not experience any, uh, events that was, uh, you know, happened later.

Um, Um, Uh, like the revolution and then, uh, takeover of the government by Islamic Republic of Iran. So I only learned about those things while away. Um, and then I also become, became very interested in learning about what was happening in Iran. But up to 12th grade, I. I studied in Iran, gained a high school diploma, and Iran during that time, and still they have the same system in a different way.

Uh, on the ninth grade, every student is supposed to choose a major in high school, and my major was natural science, but I always was interested in culture. I was Interested in literature. So I graduated with a high school diploma of natural science. And normally, when you finish high school, it is that Um, really hectic entrance exam to the universities in Iran that it is very, I, I, I cannot explain how difficult it is.

It is called CONCOUR, which is a national, uh, exam. And everybody who wants to go to university, who applies for it will sit. around the same time. But in your application, you choose, uh, in order of your preference, three different majors that you want to enter. And because I was very curious person, and I loved anatomy, And physiology.

Um, I always thought, okay, I can be in medical field. So medical school was my first choice. And normally the second thing that option I had was nursing school. And the third was microbiology. Well, I’m happy to announce that none of them I became. First of all, I could not enter medical school because some, Somebody else beat me up.

Maybe we don’t have a point, but I entered a school of nursing at University of, uh, Pahlavi at that time. Now it’s called University of Shiraz, and the nursing school was a very tedious program. Uh, we had a hostel next to a hospital. that from the day first, the students will go to the classroom four hours in the morning.

We had a lunch and then two hours in the hospital from the day first. So I kind of put up with it for three months until I realized I cannot. fool myself. I can’t be good in this because I really had a hard time, uh, going to the, uh, hospital and seeing bleeding people and sick people and the sound of the sirens constantly because we were next to the hospital.

So I kind of begged my mother, I, made a phone call and I begged her, can I please come home? And she was so happy. She told me, of course, I kept waiting for this call. On the second week you entered the school of nursing, and I don’t know how you lasted three months. So anyway, now what to do? I couldn’t enter any other university because there’s, um, exams, national exams are only Once a year, so I kind of was depressed that I’m wasting my time.

I’m wasting my time until my parents assured me. No, you’re not wasting your time. You will get you a passport. You apply for several universities and you will go where? ever. Uh, you prefer and you get admissions. And I was lucky because I had a cousin and I had my brother at the University of Texas at the time when I applied.

And I got admission, guess what? Macrobiology. So, I didn’t give up the science. I entered as a microbiology student and, um, I was very happy, uh, of course confused and very, um, very confused about what is this? This is so humongous and for somebody who didn’t know Or didn’t have the command of English. I just imagine, we studied English, but just as a lesson on the side in high school.

And, um, coming and I have to study, you know, hard to get into these classes, to take notes, to understand. And these were all challenges for me, but I kept reminding myself, I cannot fail. I cannot disappoint my parents. I can do it. I am willing to do it because that is what I wanted to do, but not particularly the major.

First semester after going to the lab and being around the other freshmen microbiologists, then I realized, what are you doing here? You will be, you know, cooked up in the laboratory for the rest of your life, looking under a microscope, and is this what you wanted? I always had an artistic interest, um, so I decided, okay, what I can do, not shift, my college because interior design at that time was under College of Sciences, Natural Sciences.

All I can do that whatever I took in Natural Sciences still would be applicable to my freshman interior design and I’d go ahead with that. So, anyway. That’s when I went, but I entered a very wrong semester. I entered during the spring. And all those courses, like the studio classes for interior designers, they were all in sequences.

I always was a year behind. So, I did my best and I… Transferred to University of Houston just to graduate on time with 120 credit hours, which their admission told me is not advisable because you still have to take a load of at least 30 more. credit hours to be able to graduate from University of Houston.

And I said, I do it. So, uh, you can imagine me because, uh, all my undergraduate studies, I knew my father had to support four children at universities in United States. Hefty, uh, tuition. And I was very careful not to waste. His money and take as much as possible credit hours per semester, which wouldn’t cost me, uh, so much.

I knew that after 16 hours, anything else you take, I learned these rules really early, anything else you, you take, it will be count for your credit, but you don’t have to pay tuition for it. So in order to finish those. credit hours here at UT and then credit. I always took five to six horses per semester and it was a killer.

However, I kept telling myself, uh, I will graduate on time and I will not be a burden, you know, for the tuition for my father because I know how hard he works. And my father is a, uh, was a pharmacist. So. My family really valued education because from my father’s side, they all are coming from a highly educated.

People with several professors and, you know, in my family from father’s side, his background, and I chose, uh, very early that I want to be a professor, um, even if I’m going to do interior design, I still love. to be a professor and teach this. So to make the story a little short, at this point, I did get my interior design degree and I applied for Kansas State University at Manhattan, Kansas, which they had a major master’s program in interior designs and textiles, and both of those majors were still under the College of Natural Sciences.

So, I got admission to do interior design masters and the very first semester, um, everything was normal, except when I was introduced to the history of textiles, which all the interior design masters and students had to take that due to understanding of the textiles for interiors. I was just so fascinated.

by that history of textiles that immediately after finishing that first semester, I knew it wasn’t too late to transfer because they both were in the same department to switch from interior design to textiles. And at Kansas State University, the textiles they were teaching was not cultural textiles.

You have to take cultural textile, but it was really textile science. And At some point during that time, I thought, this is so great, because what can I do with textile science? Forensic textiles. I was a very imaginative kid, and I always thought, wouldn’t that be cool? Get a piece of, you know, textile or a fiber, and be able to solve a crime scene.

And that was my idea of the forensic textile. So anyway, I finished my master’s program on MS in, um, textile science. And then I wanted to do PhD. And I thought at this point, you know, textile science is really great. I am really appreciative of the techniques I learned, uh, about identification of fibers and all the man made, uh, fibers and natural fibers, the process of dyeing and identifying how to separate dyes, you know, working with all these fantastic Textile science equipment.

So that I, I still was looking for something a little bit more different. And I knew with my textile science master’s degree, I could get a job in industry. Like a DuPont manufacturing fibers, but then, you know what, I still would be cooped in a lab. And I thought, I can’t be in a lab again. I like, um, a lot of contacts.

I like to learn about people, culture, um, the time span between the continents, that how one thing transfers to another place. And I was really inspired to do that. So when I, I arrived at Ohio State, my department was under College of, um, Agriculture, because Ohio State University is one of those old, a state universities that food and fiber is very important to, um, the Midwest.

And these foods and fiber were part of the agricultural products. So you can imagine from the natural science to college of, um, agriculture. And it was a different type of textiles that I was learning there. Um, it was mostly focused on the, and also I have to say this, for my PhD, uh, at Ohio State, we had to have a minor, and I chose my minor in Middle East, and Near East his, um, uh, art, Middle East and Near East art with a major in textiles.

So my textile knowledge that I gained from Ohio State University was really, really a guide. that pushed me towards the direction, I really didn’t know. And I learned because at Ohio State in the textiles department, the section that I was interested in, it was about more humanistic Part of, uh, how textile science and textile research is really interwoven with a human life.

And, and that was fascinating to me. One of the fantastic courses that I repeated that teaching it when I came back. Um, I learned from Ohio State was social. and cultural aspects of clothing. And I cannot tell you how much that helped me. First of all, get exposed to real scientific research in the field of textiles and The second thing was focusing on a different aspects of textiles rather than just forensic and, uh, chemical aspects, but focusing on the culture, economic, and all the stuff that I became, you know, later, uh, the ritual aspects, the value of historical textile, the tracing of a culture, By looking at the fabrics, identification of the motifs and how they traveled, all of these, I really, really was fascinated.

And this was, um, through my education at Ohio State University, but also having to have a minor in Middle East and Near East art, then I was able to relay that To these textile things that I was really much interested. This was my journey.

[00:19:01] Frederick: Let me, let me, um, um, ask you to, as this journey continues, that first book, um, in 2001, It sounds like it’s really pulling a lot of this together, but you focus on the veil, um, the veil unveiled, um, but also not, not just in, in garment and representation, uh, but in representation, photographs, drawings, cartoons.

Tell me like from 2001 to today, cause you, we still see in popular culture a certain way that Islam, Islam. Islamophobia, um, Orientalism, all of the things that you are so, you do such a great job of disentangling from, you know, Islamic culture in your, in this work and other. Have we. Are you seeing a notable difference?

You know, 2001, 2023, um, I don’t know. Would we still, would you still be writing the same book today?

[00:20:17] Faegheh: To answer your second question, yes. Because, and I will have more added chapters. As a matter of fact, when I wrote that book, I had to remove two chapters from that. One of them became another book. And I was told by the publisher, as an academic book, that’s becoming too, you know, too much and too long.

So you can remove whatever chapter you want, and you can deal with that. Uh, later, which I did. Uh, however, I am still puzzled about the misconception of how the Western people just have a very limited knowledge of this piece of a scarf that is covering a woman’s hair. And I always tell to my classes, because I used to teach one entire course on Islamic veiling at UT.

And I can tell you every year that I taught it, some of my older materials will be replaced with new concepts because it’s a living thing. It is. There is no way you can stop this or tell people either by force to wear it. or by force not to wear it. Emancipation doesn’t mean changing people’s clothes.

Emancipation really means enlightening yourself, be able to see other people’s way of life, food, culture, and have an appreciation for them, rather than trying to knock them down and trying to show you are superior to them, which is the attitude of Colonialism, I’m sure you are very much familiar with that, but the piece of cloth that is cover someone else, um, in my class, I always had hijabi women and non hijabi.

And I never had any confrontation with them, except when it comes to the discussion, um, I always note that those non Hijabi people had a way and attitude of passing judgment on those who wear the hijab, without really realizing the reason this woman is wearing hijab. The only reason that I think it is very popular in the Western culture is, oh, they are forced to wear it, and if they don’t, uh, they will be punished.

No, many of these women, they choose. To wear this, because for a Muslim American, that is a badge of identity. People identify themselves with their religion. If you’re wearing a cross, Should I, uh, do I have the right to tell you don’t wear it because I am not wearing it? It is a piece of an item, a part of a clothing that it means a different thing to different people.

And that has been, I think, thoroughly explained in that my first book is a versatile and covering your head doesn’t mean you’re covering your brain, for God’s sake. Your brain functions. It is the norm of your clothing that changes. If you’re wearing in the class, which I am very accustomed to see them, especially during the hot season, Texans, uh, tend to dress very little, especially during the summertime, which is not advisable.

You know, the heat will scorch your bodies, but I will have a students coming to. class with a very short shirt, flip flop, halter shirt, and you know, the temperature in the classrooms are freezing, and they will be sitting there and freezing, and I, and I couldn’t understand, couldn’t you just cover? Not because of the religious thing, just for comfort, you know, you could cover.

To feel comfortable. So, if you take this concept of comfort, you can apply it to physical comfort. And also mental comfort. And if we understand for someone who’s, uh, truly not by force, not by, you know, other means of enforcement, truly decides to cover herself. Who am I to, to judge her or call her a terrorist or call her something else or make fun of her religion?

Believe me, I have received in the, um, one of the evaluations from students that, you know, we receive a semester later, we don’t even know. Who says this about us? And it was one person had commented, I am so amazed. This professor teaches veiling while she is not veiled herself. That to me was such a stupid, uneducated, uninformative comment.

Um, and I really wish I go to the, and I learned from that, uh, in the following, uh, year. I learned a lot from the students following year. I made sure I made a reference to that. Uh, I don’t need to be a hijabi woman to be able to, it is the knowledge. It is not my, you know, I’m not on the stage. I’m not costuming myself for the class.

And, um, one examples I always gave them, do you know the best of the best experts in, uh, Quran, the Muslim scripture, is not a Muslim. It’s a Jew. So it doesn’t mean that he has to belong to the religion in order. It is his knowledge. So, uh, people are still thinking, um, Very narrowly, that it all has to do with, uh, control of the bodies, uh, patriarchy, society.

Look, it all are inclusive, okay? One may do it for that, but there are many other reasons.

[00:27:43] Frederick: Reminds reminds me of the mini series that spins out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe where we have Ms. Marvel now as Kamala Khan and her best friend is Nakia and she, um, I mean, she. She wears, uh, the hijab without feeling pressured or hindered by it just she just does.

Um, so yeah, I love that. Let me ask you as we kind of move through you do these, you do this really, um, innovative original work in these spaces that, you know, we need you, the, the, the voice and the research and the insight, um, that you provide one of Of this with these areas is the internet and women, um, this quiet resistance, um, to Islamic fundamentalism that you published in the book, Velvet Jihad.

What was in that work for you? Um, maybe you can share an example, uh, maybe a surprising example that you came across of a creative strategy among Muslim women quietly fighting against those who limit their rights. Yes.

[00:29:00] Faegheh: For that book, I really, let me just tell you, I enjoyed everything I wrote and unpublished.

Otherwise, I wouldn’t be finishing them. So, this Velvet Jihad was very challenging for me, and it was because of the comments I used to hear. Oh, they are forced to do this. They don’t have any other choices. And looking at the gender issues. And since I’m only limiting myself to the Muslim societies, I don’t go beyond the Muslims.

So it is the problem that many, um, outsider comments on. Oh, Muslim women don’t have any choice. Muslim women are, you know, dominated by men. And if they don’t do this, they do this, they do that. But I wanted to show a different side of the Muslim woman? That, how? They resist their own patriarchy society, which is not in a strange, uh, thing to comment about.

Most the world is patriotic, including the U. S. You have a different types of patriarchy. So, in order to address that, to show how Muslim women, they have found a way and it is very innovative, very clever how to get around what is forced upon them or what is expected from them that they cannot achieve what they really want to do, but how to encounter that.

Uh, I always used to explain that it is just like putting a bite straight from your hand to your mouth. Or, going around and making a turn, but still putting it in your mouth. It takes patience, it takes, uh, a different, innovative way, and it takes a person who’s brave to do that. And all of these women that I have encountered in this book, and they are not, uh, from one Islamic culture, from all the way, they have found their way.

to achieve that and, um, and also face those discriminations. One of the chapters is about, um, which I really remember. I had really lots of fun. It’s about contraceptions. Okay. And to me was amazing. I am from Iran and I go back to Iran for this particular chapter, just for a part of it. Right. Um, I discover.

Iran is one of the biggest manufacturer of condom industry, and it’s in that book. It’s not on that chapter. And the way that they advertise for it, all I wanted, I wanted to get hold of one package. To see what is their instruction, how they will tell the man to wear a condom. To me, that was fascinating.

So, anyway, I did go through a letter that I prepared ahead of time, and I really, really had to convince the manager of this. humongous condom factory that is located outside of of Tehran that I have hired a graduate student from Iran and I’m sending this letter on my behalf and she will be coming, uh, to Get some of these samples and I have provided her the questions that she could ask.

Um, and then please allow her these questions answer this question. And this is because you also have to convince them. This is not for knocking. Islamic Republic of Iran down. This is academic work, and it was very hard to do it. So anyway, she went with this letter to this factory. Man, when she came back, I said that you could, and she sent a note that I have the materials you wanted and that questions are answered and, uh, you know, and I have a brother who still lives in Iran.

So he delivered everything to my brother and he says, Pfizer, 250 condoms.

What is it I need to do with them?

I joked with him. I said, have a condom party with your first, I don’t know, all I wanted. And I instructed him, I instructed him, take him out of the package. Take photos of all the instruction and he said that I can mail it to you, but I cannot do it from, uh, the post office in Iran because they, um, open any boxes that goes outside, but I can send it with some passengers, um, who is going.

To Europe and from Europe. They can send it to you. I said, Please do that. But before it gets lost because I’m on that chapter, I need the information. Please take a photo of the box, the instruction and a couple of the samples will sit and you’ll be so surprised. The manager even had noted. That the biggest seller of, I mean, the biggest buyers of this product from Iran are the Gulf Arabs in the region.

And then he had narrowed it down. There are flavored ones, and he had narrowed it down by flavor. The chocolate flavor, the, I don’t know, the apple flavor, the strawberry flavor. He had narrowed it down. That what are The ones that it sells most and you, I learned that they have two types of products, one products that is really a plus is for exportation.

Okay. And those are, uh, manufactured based on what the buyers, the consumers want. The one for Iran, he had explained, um, we experimented that the strawberry Iranians prefer a strawberry flavor and the issue of this whole thing I’m explaining just to make a point, not all the Muslim nations are the same because in Egypt, women are not allowed to buy condom in Iran.

You go, there are exclusive condom shops, plus you can buy them from anywhere that you can buy chocolate and candies and bubble gum into the pharmacy. Nobody asks you, I need to see, uh, how old you are or show me your marriage certificate so I can sell this to you. No, it’s a product and it is advertised.

And it is salt. So for many, probably, I always, uh, if I may just add one more thing to it, um, Fredric, it is in my class, when I discuss that, I used to tell him, can you imagine The U. S. government gets involved in manufacturing condom. It’s impossible. It is not even imaginable. Because the criticism that they will receive from all the religious group.

Compare that to Islamic Republic of Iran, which their constitution is Islamic, having sex out of the marriage is forbidden, and it’s openly, the government manufactures this, it is Grand slump, Frederick, for, for God’s sake, they are in to make money. They make the money in a different way. So it is the government is manufacturing that, and it is not a private enterprise.

And then compare that if the government of, I don’t know, any European countries gets involved in manufacturing condoms. I don’t know how would be the reaction, but I think bunch of, um, You know, the hardcore religious, uh, groups will be demonstrating outside the White House.

[00:39:19] Frederick: Um, um, let me ask you, uh, you know, this kind of nice segue to Brand Islam, a book you published in 2016, and this circulation of kind of everyday objects used in our life that you just talked about, um, in, you know, this velvet jihad.

And come with condoms. But if there’s one thing, say that you wanted me or listeners to take away from, I know you, there’s a lot that you do in brand Islam, children’s toys, cosmetics, food, questioning the authentic, the marketing and commodification, um, kind of pushing against orientalist. Um, traditions, conventions, what would it be?

What would the, the thing that you want me to take away from this, um, incredible book that you, um, put out in the

[00:40:11] Faegheh: world? Okay. The one thing I want. You to take away is the, uh, there are many things, but one just pops on the top of everything is the, um, biotism of the West into the Islam and the products.

And somewhere very early in that book, when I talk about, um, Islamic hotels or halal hotels, uh, uh, uh, Okay, you know, Belgium created the first halal hotel. Okay, it is not for the kindness to the Muslims. It is because it doesn’t matter where the money comes from, whose pocket is money. Money is money. A Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, you provide services for them, and if it is established, They use it.

Who cares? So, this, um, hypocrisy, that on one hand, outside the Islamic world, many of these products, not only are manufactured by the Muslims themselves, But it’s also by the marketers of non Muslim, who probably somewhere in their head, some of them, may have some negative attitude about the Muslim. On one hand, during the emigrations and the wars and all that, you complain about them.

And on the other hand, you catering to them. So, what I see this is a hypocrisy. When it comes to benefit from them, They are the friends, but when it comes to other issues, you can use them as a foe and talk against them. So this is one thing that it came very clear to my mind, and I do have millions of examples.

Um, it, it is beyond, and some of the Islamic countries that are not in the Middle East and they are not Arab. The biggest population is in Indonesia, okay? They don’t speak Arabic, they are not Arab, and they are not in the middle of the Middle East. But they are the largest Muslim, uh, country. They are very, very, um, productive in creating a hub for Islamic products.

Some of them, to me, well, I cannot say it was laughable, but it was, it was amazing. You know, Frederick, let me just tell you. Sometimes when I was thinking through this book and, you know, as I was writing, I would just think to myself, let me see if anyone had thought about Islamic shoe. And I thought that’s a joke.

Believe me, it’s not a joke. Indonesia does that. How? Well, the leather is used. It’s the zabiha. Islamic kosher. Okay? And it is from an animal that is known as halal or permissible to consume in Islam, like a cow or a sheep or whatever, not a pig. Okay. So these shoe manufacturers, when they make shoes out of the leather, like in Indonesia, they really go to the source.

The source is it has to be halal or kosher, you know, and then The process, the manufacturing, everything is controlled. So when they say really Islamic shoes, they really mean it. And in Indonesia, uh, they have gone far beyond, um, not for the, uh, consumers to be cheated. They use Technology, for example, in the grocery shops, when you pick a packet off of something that you cannot identify the ingredients.

Okay. They have a barcode and in every grocery store. There are stations. That you can run the packet under, and it will read the barcode. These are all, if it’s, if it’s halal or permissible, government has a record of it. And it will give the consumer immediately, it is halal. And it is in our record. So it’s okay to buy if you have suspicious for many of the Muslims that they don’t want to feel bad about eating, putting something in their mouth or rubbing something on their skin that it was not deemed to be halal.

It’s very important now. For somebody like me, I won’t eat, uh, pork or pork products, but that halal principle of it is not a big issue. I am more into the animal products. I don’t want to use anything that they killed an animal and then They put it in a jar and I can rub on my body as a lotion. So I’m careful about that.

That’s why this brand Islam that I discuss, it really has taken off, but it costs a lot of money for the manufacturer because when they put halal, It also qualifies for kosher, it is vegan, and it’s also vegetarian. So for all those four items, they have to pay a different fees. to be certified. And certification for the halal is not forever.

Every two years they have to renew their certification. And the most amazing thing to me is, as I described, not all the Muslim nations are the same. They may all have the principle of halal, same Quran, everything. But the way they conduct their business is different. For example, if Iranian government buying cows from Australia, Australian government does a supervision for halal butchering.

But the Iranian government does not accept the Australian Islamic you know, whatever supervises the butchering. They have to do it on their own. So, in this way, they don’t have to pay a fee to another country, but they pay the fee to their own people. So, you understand the economic side of it also? It is so beyond just eating a piece of meat, and it is so full of halal, too.

That I think in that book, I do have a couple of examples, it’s called 50 percent halal, there’s nothing, 1 percent uh, non halal, it makes the whole thing haram or forbidden. So I hope I explained this thoroughly.

[00:48:38] Frederick: Yeah, no, it’s very interesting. Um, just to, you know, um, kind of move us into this latest book of yours, um, that you just published that maybe you can talk a little bit about maybe, um, focusing in on what I thought was interesting that so much interesting about it.

But the, that history of, Yes. Not surprising, but the history and you mentioned this at the beginning of our, um, chat about kind of coloniality of power appropriation. And the, I didn’t realize that, you know, not only, of course, the appropriation of Textile, um, traditions, um, by the colonizers, but also the tensions that it created between the colonizers.

Um, but maybe you can share a little bit, uh, about your new, your new book, um, maybe in that same

[00:49:37] Faegheh: vein. So this book takes me to my Ohio State training. I have been preparing myself, um, for this, maybe all along, you know, other publications. So it takes me back where I learned from the social and psychological aspects of textiles and clothing.

Okay. Before starting, Let me tell you one little example that we, every day, maybe we are using it or we’re seeing it in one of our beverages. Hot tea. What the heck is British breakfast tea? I always question that. Where in Britain? Tea is grown. It’s Darjeeling tea. It’s Indian tea. You just packet it, packet that in a canister and put your name on it?

The Earl Grey British. No! For centuries in Iran, people would harvest the blossoms of oranges and then make, they made Black tea. They dip those blossoms in the tea and it’s flavored tea. Why you call it British? Because someone put it on the canister. These are the issues that the original cultures never get credit, okay?

And it’s appropriated. Okay, that’s how it is. But we see it. One of the examples, I think I have said that, um, fashion designers copy lots and lots of other cultures, um, cultural patterns, even use their cultural textiles, and they run their show on their own name. Okay? Without giving a due credit to, for example, ikat, the textile ikat, or the silk ikat.

The best comes from, from Central Asia and from Indonesia. You take the pattern, you even use their textiles, but then it becomes, you’re copyrighted. We cannot go back and copyright our culture. Right? It, it looks like that anything is free to grab and make it your own. And this has been a big question in my head.

It is, you take the name, you take the, uh, resources and you also use their manufacturers. Okay. But you use them only. To promote your own product, but somewhere someone is missing out this point. So, in the colonial attitude, I think the examples I have are really, really, was fascinating that how the text style not only is appropriated, The colonizers also is a big fight.

Who got there first? Who did this, that? The example I have, uh, said is Chintz, the, uh, which originally is a hand block printed Indian, uh, textile, and they still do it. Um, And then when the British got there, you know, the door was open, it’s their subcontinent belongs to them, and they could do anything they wanted, and I am very happy that, uh, which I did speak about it on, in length, that their fight against the colonialism was really peaceful, punishing them in the same way that they were making money out of subcontinent of India by not purchasing goods from England.

And that, they realize, a big number of consumers are out, as peaceful as that. But, these trends, the very attractive fabrics, and they wanted to make clothes, and they wanted to make, you know, they liked it so much that they used it in their interiors, the fabric covering walls, and so forth, and it was hurting.

their own economy because nobody in England was doing this until the British figured out to do this by mechanizing the rotary, you know, um, the rotary textile printing using the same principles, but it’s not hand block. It is rotary machine that makes it. And then, uh, The best part of it or, I don’t know, the most serious part of it was what they took from the Indians manufactured in, in Britain, then bringing it back to the Indians to sell them.

For God’s sake, it didn’t end there, you know, making money out of every process. Then it became very attractive in the court of France. Because you know that they were rivals, the French and then the British, and they still have some issues, political issues, which is other, but it became also very popular.

The problem with France… was the textile makers of France were very annoyed with this fabric, which was attractive, multi color, and then probably much cheaper to produce, because in France, due to the climate, not much of cotton was used. So that goes to the source. It was mostly, um, woollen And nobody was attracted to this, uh, mohair and woolen during the summertime.

So, since the textile workers were protesting, uh, the authority from the court gave the, um, police the, um, permission. Wearing, you know, chins in public. It’s against the French law. And I think you, if you are really interested, you can go and read all those that are recorded. Um, and you have the power of ripping the clothes off the body of a woman and making her embarrassed.

That reminded me, really, too, when you want to do something by force. It is like when the very first Shah of Iran in 1930s authorized the police to grab A woman’s hijab in the street and making her feel ashamed to them, removing the hijab was like being naked. So to me, this is so similar to what the politics was doing to achieve, um, their own points of view that they got into fight, but they didn’t think.

That in their own court, woman will not give up his chance. They were a smuggled in France when a very high prices and the courtiers were buying those. Of course, they wouldn’t be out in the street. The rules was only good for the ordinary people in the street. It wouldn’t be applicable. to people in power.

Well, it’s the same as story continuation of the same things in a different rhythm, correct? And my point on that was to show the textile has a vast power to inform people from many different aspects of life, from politics, from religion, from social, from activism, you name it, from economic, every piece of textile can tell you a bigger story.

And then also borrowing loan words. And then there’s a lot of vocabulary had entered English vocabulary based on textiles from everywhere in the world. And The other aspect of it is, due to, um, the immediate access we have to internet, it’s not that much difficult. So a lot of fictitious things come, which is not lasting.

One of the biggest manufacturers of everybody’s textile is China, which is actually damaging the traditions in those cultures, that it took them centuries. to perfect a process. And now they’re coming with a fictitious material. And, um, by the way, a long time back, I learned when I was studying at Ohio State University, how many times I have to say this?

Um, when you read the labors, read the labors carefully. If the manufacturer advertises for a piece of cloth, it’s a silken, it is not silk. That’s not silk. You have to know your vocabulary. If you said, uh, woolen, you know, no, it’s not a pure wool. And also, It was said that looks like this immediately. You take a closer look, you know, it’s a fictitious thing.

I’m still working on things at this point, and I am retired from my class. But I’m not retired from educating myself and reading and writing and I do it with joy. I hope anyone who’s listening to this will take a little bit from it and understand you could do it. Look what I did, how, how much I hopped here and hopped there, but I didn’t waste.

any of that knowledge that I, uh, learned. I’m so happy I learned, uh, chemistry of textiles. No merchant can fool me. If it’s just silk, and I know it is not silk, and I can prove it by just removing one thread and match. and smell it and observe how it burns. I know it’s not silk. So, if you have any other question,

[01:01:42] Frederick: I’m Yeah, no, that’s beautiful.

Thank you so much. Um, Faye Shirazi, this has been quite an incredible journey taking us through this. Um, personal, um, and yet at the same time, global adventure through textiles, food, tea, material culture, it’s movements across the globe. Um, and, you know, finally, you know, really a kind of a reminder of the importance of our defense of free choice when it comes to clothing, right?

Yeah, I, um, thank you

[01:02:24] Outro: Into The Colaverse is produced by the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Liberal Arts Sound Engineering by the Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services you can find into the Colaverse Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. Thanks for listening and see you next time.