Mammad Aidani

Dr Mammad Aidani is a playwright and theatre director and holds a PhD in hermeneutics, phenomenological and existential psychology and an MA in sociolinguistics and identity. 

Mammad’s research focuses on Middle Eastern communities, especially Iranians who have experienced violence and torture, suffering in the diaspora, and have to address forms of social and cultural alienation both in their home countries and the countries in which they have resettled in the West. 

Mammad’s theoretical work is concerned with hermeneutics and phenomenology, and the role of lived narratives and the formation of identity and memory in existential psychology. Mammad has taught on the latter with the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy. Welcoming the Stranger: Narratives of Identity and Belonging in an Iranian Diaspora (Common Ground) was published in 2010, while Narrative and Violence: Ways of Suffering amongst Iranian Men in Diaspora (Routledge, 2020) was recently reedited in paperback.

More recently throughout 2019, Mammad spearheaded the collaborative project “Writing in Exile” between PEN International Melbourne and the Wheeler Centre. He is a committee member of PEN International Melbourne and is its current Vice President. Mammad’s play “In the mirror” was to be staged at La Mama Theatre (Melbourne) earlier this year, but had to be postponed due to the pandemic.

Mammad is an IPCS visiting fellow for 2022.

Back to top