CURA Colloquium with Mehrdad Babadi, Phd Candidate, Anthropology, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

The rise of divorce and the increase in the age of marriage among the youth, together with the popular emergence of new lifestyles of premarital intimacies (e.g. dating, romance, and sex) has led to what the government and religious authorities called "moral crisis." More interestingly, young Iranians re-examine the moral norms of a society in an accelerated transition from traditional to modern, through trial and error. Babadi builds on the author's ethnographic and interview data to demonstrate how different "cultural models" and conflicting "moral registers" participate in forming and challenging the premarital intimate beliefs, attitudes, and practices of young people. In addition, Babadi explores how young Iranians come up with emerging strategies of action to overcome the moral ambivalences and develop new ethics of intimacy.

Co-sponsored with the School of Theology *Reading the paper in advance of the session is required. Email arleneb@bu.edu for your copy.