2015年经济学人 伊朗大学重焕生机

（单词翻译）

Iran's universities

Breathing again

The new president is giving students a longer leash¹

“AT LEAST one thing hasn't changed”, remarked a Tehran University professor who had recently returned to work after several years.

“The faculty² still gossips terribly.” But under President Hassan Rouhani bigger changes onIran's leading campus—

and perhaps in universities elsewhere—may also be on the way.

One sign of this was the recent sacking ofTehranUniversity's conservative chancellor³.

Appointed in 2008 by Mr Rouhani's populist predecessor⁴, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he had overseen⁵ the expulsion of independent-minded students and academics,

promoting mediocre⁶ yes-men and stifling⁷ the intellectual atmosphere.

Since his departure, things have loosened up. Last month over 1,000 students gathered to hear a lecture by Immanuel Wallerstein,

an 83-year-old, left-wing American sociologist⁸. Widely translated into Persian, he is respected acrossIran's intellectual spectrum⁹,

albeit¹⁰ under various interpretations¹¹. For some, he is a herald¹² ofAmerica's decline, affirmingIran's official narrative¹³.

For others, he still represents America, even if he challenges the global status quo.

In the early years of this century, under the presidency¹⁴ of Muhammad Khatami, Western intellectuals visited quite often.

Under Mr Ahmadinejad, they virtually stopped coming. But since Mr Rouhani was elected last summer, intellectual waters are being tested again.

Hosted by the Iranian Sociological Association, Mr Wallerstein's lecture tour included two other notable universities, atShirazandIsfahan.

Many of the students did not know who he was, but wanted to see an American scholar anyway.

When he observed that third-world regimes born out of revolution tended to create the same social and economic problems their founders¹⁵ had promised to solve,

a frisson rippled¹⁶ through the ssembly. At the back of the hall, where students craned to see him, whistles and applause erupted.