- 25 Aug 2015
Iran in the Age of Globalisation – Three Stories and Some Notes
Abstract
Modern Iran is often examined as a nation-state or as part of the Middle East. What insights do we gain when analyzing it through the lens of global developments and vice versa? This is the question at the heart of my talk. I will use three concrete case studies – of a book, a picture, and a refrigerator – culled from post-war archival and printed sources to examine that question. Specific aspects will include Iran’s position in a globalizing culture; the changing shape of Iranian Studies, and revolutionized transport geographies; and Iran’s international political position and the Pahlavi shahs’ role in ‘a globalized monarchy.’
About the Speakers
Associate Professor
Princeton University
Cyrus Schayegh (PhD, Columbia University, 2004) is Associate Professor at Princeton University. He is the author of Who Is Knowledgeable, Is Strong: Science, Class, and the Formation of Modern Iranian Society, 1900-1950 (California University Press, 2009) and of The Making of the Modern World: A Middle Eastern History (under contract with Harvard University Press); has co-edited A Global Middle East: Mobility, Materiality and Culture in the Modern Age, 1880-1940 (Tauris, 2014) and The Routledge History Handbook of the Middle East Mandates (Routledge, 2015); and has published in the American Historical Review, Comparative Studies in Society and History, and the International Journal of Middle East Studies, amongst other journals. He is currently developing three new, collaborative projects. The principal one, which brings him to Singapore, bears the working title “Global/Third-World go-between cities: Revisiting post-war globalization and the Cold War from early post-colonial Beirut, Dakar and Singapore, 1940s-1970s.”
