Projects

Inner Layers, in collaboration with its contributors and affiliates, undertakes projects that focus on a discernible time period, location, and social or cultural construct within Iranian communities. Inner Layers is particularly interested in projects that provide access to previously under-valued dimensions of the Iranian culture.

Tehrangeles

Tehrangeles is an interdisciplinary project documenting the Iranian transnational culture and its particular presence in California. It deploys a variety of approaches to interview, record, edit, digitize, preserve and make available for public scrutiny, for scholarly research and for future generations, first person narratives and original documents about Iranian immigrants. Tehrangeles is in part about the cultural icons of Iranian American life as well as day-to-day practices that both define or transcend the contours of the community. Tehrangeles is unique and important in its reach, in creating an electronic record of the Iranian immigrant experience to preserve the past and make possible examination of the fluid constructs of the diasporic community. We are interested in Iranian cultural imprints in familiar neighborhoods around Los Angeles, from Westwood to the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere.

The Persian Wedding

The Persian Wedding documents ceremonial activities related to weddings in various Iranian cultural and religious practices.

Beginning with the work of Bijan Moridani, Inner Layers will continue to identify and collect materials as well as narratives that document the wedding practices in Iranian communities.

To see sample pages from the English section of the book click here. To see sample pages from the Persian section of the book click here. Both samples are in PDF format. In order to view the files, you need the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™.

To purchase the book click here.

Elsewhere, the Iranian Jewish Oral History Project in Los Angeles has collected historical documents and materials, including historical marriage Ketubahs from the Iranian Jewish community. For examples of full-color reproductions of Islamic and Jewish marriage contracts refer to Esther’s Children: a Portrait of Iranian Jews, edited by Houman Sarshar.