2/25 Lecture: The Cultural Infrastructure of Oil in Iran and Iraq

Woman stand outside in a dappled light from foliage in a black tank top smiling

Lecture: The Cultural Infrastructure of Oil in Iran and Iraq

Wednesday, February 25 

4-6pm

Sutardja Dai Hall, Room 250

Join Iranian Studies and Dr. Mona Damluji, Assistant Professor, Film and Media Studies at UCSB for lecture “The Cultural Infrastructure of Oil in Iran and Iraq.” 

Dr. Mona Damluji’s talk will be based on her recent monograph, Pipeline Cinema, published by UC Press in December 2025. Her book examines the origins of oil-sponsored filmmaking in mid-twentieth-century Iran and Iraq, revealing how wells, pipelines, pumping stations, and refineries emerged as sites of cinematic production and exhibition within the context of the worker-led revolutionary struggle against British imperialism.

Presented by UC Berkeley’s Iranian Studies Program and co-sponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

This event is free & open to the public.

Topics

Spring 2026 Lecture Series topic page

Mona Damluji is Assistant Professor of Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her PhD in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, and has worked as a freelance producer and editing assistant for independent documentary filmmakers and television outlets, including PBS, NBC Olympics, and the National Geographic Channel. Damluji’s teaching, research, and creative work engage underrepresented media histories and cultural studies of energy, cities, and infrastructure centered in the Middle East and its diasporas. She is a Peabody Award and Emmy Award-nominated producer of two seasons of the short documentary series The Secret Life of Muslims and co-curator of the traveling exhibition “Arab Comics: 90 Years of Popular Visual Culture”. Seven Stories Press has published her poetry as two illustrated picture books, Together (2021) and I Want You to Know (2025).