In our Nov 17, 2017 meeting, we had a great time having James Taylor and Prof. Jonathan Katz in our community. We can break our meeting to two sections. First section of our meeting was focused on Thanksgiving Day. In the second section, Prof. Jonathan Katz went through the history of Iran-US relationship in past century.

Section 1: Thanksgiving Day

Although the whole Thanksgiving Day seems fun but underneath it is a complicated topic to get for most of the international students. In one side, some people celebrate it and in the other side some people do not like it. If you ask your friends about the history of Thanksgiving Day, you will hear way different stories. I came up to an idea that can help me a lot to get it easier. “Today Thanksgiving Day” is a day that most people spend a day or two with their families and have turkey together and watch football, and some people go to church to celebrate it. In the other hand, “History of Thanksgiving Day” which is still a mystery for me.

First, the following video is about how Indian Americans explain the “Thanksgiving Day”.

Second, Taylor’s talk about the “History of Thanksgiving Day” and “Today Thanksgiving Day” as a christian.

Chapter 2: History of Iran-US relations

In the second section of our meeting, Prof. Jonathan Katz had a talk about history of Iran-US relationship over past century. You can listen to Prof. Katz’s talk here.

Footnote: After Prof. Katz’s talk, audiences, for 45 min, asked question, mostly focused on current situation in middle east. Questions section was really interesting to hear, however, due to privacy policies of our association, we cannot share those here.