Academic writing and writing about lives : an introduction -- Modernity, sexuality, and popular culture : Iran's social agony -- Iranian women and public space in the seventies : Shahrzad, a woman of her time -- Seduction, sin, and salvation : spurious sexuality in dance and film -- Shahrzad as a writer : the question of literary modernity -- Social change in Iran and the transforming lives of women artists -- Ideology, sexuality, and sexual agency : an afterword