20th Tehran International Puppet Festival Research Section Announces Selected Abstracts

According to the news agency, the research section of the 20th Tehran International Puppet Theater Festival–Mobarak received 63 abstracts, including five in English. Jury members include Mohammad-Baqer Ghalamchi, Kamran Sepahran, and Ramtin Shahbazi. Submission deadline for full papers is 7 Mehr, with final results announced on 14 Mehr. Selected abstracts cover four themes: Applied and Pedagogical Puppet Theater (scientific and review), History of Puppet Theater in Contemporary Iran, Puppet Theater and New Technologies, and Puppet Theater and Audience Studies. Notable topics include educational potential of traditional Iranian puppetry, university roles in professionalizing the field, puppet therapy for children’s fear of darkness, comparative studies of puppetry in education, cognitive neuroscience of puppetry, digital revival of heritage, AI and robotics in puppetry, and immersive puppetry for early childhood development. Two English abstracts address holistic self-formation through interactive puppetry and global puppetry museology. The festival, directed by Popak Azimpour Tabrizi with research managed by Fahimeh Mirzahosein, will take place in Tehran in Mehr 1404.