New Books in Iranian Studies
Episodes
Houri Berberian, "Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian and Ottoman Worlds" (U California Press, 2019)
07 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In her newest book, Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian and Ottoman Worlds (University of Californ...
Dilip Hiro, "Cold War in the Islamic World: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Struggle for Supremacy" (Oxford UP, 2018)
16 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, the concept of a ‘Cold War’ has been revived to describe the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two most influential stat...
Alireza Doostdar, "The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny" (Princeton UP, 2018)
05 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Winner of the Middle East Studies Association’s 2018 Albert Hourani Book Award, Alireza Doostdar’s The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Scie...
Ata Anzali, “‘Mysticism’ in Iran: The Safavid Roots of a Modern Concept” (U South Carolina Press, 2017)
20 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his sparkling new book, “Mysticism” in Iran: The Safavid Roots of a Modern Concept (University of South Carolina Press, 2017), Ata Anzali, Ass...
Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Kourosh Rahimkhani, “Postrevolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook” (Syracuse UP, 2017)
28 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Kourosh Rahimkhani‘s new book, Postrevolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook (Syracuse University Press, 2017), traces the pol...
Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, “The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the Politics of Dislocation” (Columbia UP, 2016)
20 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past century, virtually every Iranian—whether living in Iran or in the diaspora—has been exposed, to one degree or another, to certain co...
Kevan Harris, “A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran” (U. Cal Press, 2017)
11 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Kevan Harris is the author of A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran (University of California Press, 2017). Harris is assistant ...
Neda Maghbouleh, “The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race” (Stanford UP, 2017)
20 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
How does a group become defined as white? And does that group define themselves that way as well? Neda Maghbouleh‘s new book, The Limits of Whitenes...
Blake Atwood, “Reform Cinema in Iran: Film and Political Change in the Islamic Republic” (Columbia UP, 2016)
26 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Iranian cinema has close connections to the 1979 Islamic revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini , explicitly pointed to the uses of cinema for religious and r...
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, “Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment” (U. of Minnesota Press, 2016)
06 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How did the preeminent theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault experience and observe the Iranian revolution? How did he find the revolution disrupti...
Jason Mokhtarian, “Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests: The Culture of the Talmud in Ancient Iran” (U of California Press, 2015)
22 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests: The Culture of the Talmud in Ancient Iran (University of California Press, 2015), Jason Mokhtarian, Assistan...
Afsaneh Najmabadi, "Professing Selves: Transsexuality and Same-Sex Desire in Contemporary Iran" (Duke UP, 2013)
30 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In her fascinating new book Professing Selves: Transsexuality and Same-Sex Desire in Contemporary Iran (Duke University Press, 2015), Afsaneh Najma...
Naser Ghobadzadeh, “Religious Secularity: A Theological Challenge to the Islamic State” (Oxford UP, 2014)
18 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
While “fundamentalism” and “authoritarian secularism” are commonly perceived as the two mutually exclusive paradigms available to Muslim major...
Gohar Homayounpour, “Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran” (MIT Press, 2012)
19 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran (MIT Press, 2012) — part memoir, part elegy, and part collection of clinical vignettes — Gohar Homayounpour take...
Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal, and Sarah Shourd, “A Sliver of Light” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014)
10 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 2009, Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal, and Sarah Shourd were hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan when they unknowingly crossed into Iran and were ca...
Sarah Bowen Savant, “The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
16 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Bowen Savant, Associate Professor at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations at the Aga Khan University in London, addresses importa...
Marc Ambinder and D.B. Grady, “Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry” (Wiley, 2013)
26 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Marc Ambinder is the author, with D.B. Grady, of Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry (Wiley, 2013). He is a contributing editor at GQ a...
Ali Ansari, “The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran” (Cambridge UP, 2012)
13 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Ali Ansari traces the nationalist movement in Iran from the Tobacco ...
Mark Haas, “The Clash of Ideologies: Middle Eastern Politics and American Security” (Oxford UP, 2012)
18 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
How do ideologies shape foreign policy? That is question Dr. Mark Haas examines in his new book The Clash of Ideologies: Middle Eastern Politics and A...
W. Taylor Fain, “American Ascendance and British Retreat in the Persian Gulf Region” (Palgrave-McMillan, 2008)
14 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
If you ask most Americans when the U.S. became heavily involved in the Persian Gulf, they might cite the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1981 or, more proba...