{"id":4781,"date":"2025-09-08T20:33:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T20:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/?p=4781"},"modified":"2025-09-08T20:33:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T20:33:35","slug":"community-news-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/2025\/09\/08\/community-news-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Community News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sina Rafizadeh<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Sina Rafizadeh, an ISSD alumni, earned her Master of Science in Biotechnology, specializing in Bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University. While in school, she worked full time at Becton-Dickinson, working in assay technology development. She now currently works at Roche in diagnostic assay development and optimization.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

\"\"Natasha Asgari<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Natasha Asgari, ISSD alumni and Co-VP of the PCC Youth Committee, recently graduated from high school and will be attending UCLA this fall. She will be studying Physiological Science on the pre-med route.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Aria Fani Awarded Ren\u00e9 Wellek Prize for Best Book in Comparative Literature<\/b><\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Submitted by\u00a0Rick Aguilar<\/p>\n

Aria Fani’s first book,\u00a0Reading across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism<\/i>\u00a0(U. of Texas Press, 2024), has won the American Comparative Literature’s prestigious Ren\u00e9 Wellek prize for best monograph in the field. The members of the prize committee write:<\/p>\n

“The book is organized around two major words:\u00a0adabiy\u0101t<\/i>, the Persian term for literature derived from the modern European notion of literature as an institutionalized corpus of texts that expresses the ethos and the achievements of a people, and\u00a0adab<\/i>, the non-European derived Persian word that unites the aesthetics and ethics in its idea of literature.\u00a0What makes this book an \u201coutstanding book in the discipline\u201d is its ability to show the crucial role that comparative literature plays to understand the complexities of our contemporary world by using a context-specific study to engage with the major debates within world literature, postcolonial studies, and the humanities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Methodologically,\u00a0Reading across Borders<\/i>\u00a0offers a convincing example of what twenty-first century comparativism can and should look like. There is a lot to praise in this book and we would not do it justice by listing the main lessons one can learn here, but we do want to mention the epilogue \u201cWho Needs Literature Today?\u201d as a personal, vulnerable meditation on what it takes to enter the classroom each day and engage with \u201cwhat it means to be a living person and reading literature.\u201d (183)<\/p>\n

From University of Washington, Middle Eastern Languages and Culture Newsletter<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"Aryana Mahasseni<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Our own Aryana Mahasseni managed to win 1st place in a writing contest for the Coast News and Write Away Books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sina Rafizadeh Sina Rafizadeh, an ISSD alumni, earned her Master of Science in Biotechnology, specializing in Bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University. While in school, she worked full time at Becton-Dickinson, working in assay technology development. She now currently works at Roche in diagnostic assay development and optimization. Natasha Asgari Natasha Asgari, ISSD alumni and Co-VP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-san-diego-community-news"],"yoast_head":"\nCommunity News - Peyk Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/2025\/09\/08\/community-news-12\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Community News - Peyk Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sina Rafizadeh Sina Rafizadeh, an ISSD alumni, earned her Master of Science in Biotechnology, specializing in Bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University. 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