About

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HOSSEIN NURI was born in 1954 in Iran. He became obsessed with painting in elementary school and showed his ability in various styles of painting at an early age. Before the Iranian revolution of 1979 he wrote a play which was a political satire in defense of human rights, so he was tortured as a 17-year-old by regime of Shah and consequently lost his ability of moving hands and legs. But he continued painting with his mouth and so far he has organized more than a hundred exhibitions in Iran, France, China, Germany, Algeria, Lebanon, and Austria. Nuri's career in dramatic arts and cinema hasn't been secondary to his painting career. He is a multi-award winner in Iran's stage festivals and his feature film 'My Arms Flew' has been screened and awarded in festivals and events in India, Germany, Italy, US, and Canada.

NADIA MAFTOUNI was born in 1966 in Iran. She continued secondary education being enrolled to Iran's National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (SAMPAD). In 1983 she received her high school diploma in Math and Physics and was enrolled to Sharif University of Technology which is known for attracting top ranking applicants at Iranian national university entrance exam. She started studying applied physics there and in 1984 she met Hossein Nuri who was already wheelchair-bound and was invited to the university to hold a speech. Nadia fell in love and proposed to him. She left her studies and went to live with Nuri in the border town of Torbate Jam. Maftouni learned painting from Nuri and they held several exhibitions together in various cities of Iran. Moreover she exercised her ability in various artistic fields including poetry, playwriting, writing and producing radio programs, and directing, editing, and narrating documentary films. After moving to Mashhad, Maftouni studied Islamic philosophy at Hawza Ilmiyya of Mashhad from 1992 to 1999 completing primary sat'h and secondary sat'h. In 2000 she moved back to Tehran and together with Nuri they held multiple exhibitions in major world capitals. She continued her studies and gained her BA, MA, and PhD in Philosophy and Islamic Kalam from University of Tehran where she is now a full professor and a researcher in Islamic philosophy, philosophy of art,  jurisprudence and Islamic history. She is a senior research scholar at Yale Law School and, in addition to being chief editor of two philosophy journals in Iran, she is a consultant for History of Philosophy Quarterly published by the University of Illinois Press. She has held numerous panels with leading scholars including Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Žižek, Nicholas Rescher, Noël Carroll, Dimitri Gutas, and many more some of whom have praised her academic contributions.