Newsletter: February 3, 2023

A photograph from my office library at the Univeresity of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Author’s photo.

Welcome to my newsletter and blog: Persepolis Unbound. My name is Keanu Heydari. I’m a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I study the Iranian diaspora in France in the twentieth century. I’m also interested in New Testament studies and modern theology.

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Updates

With the death of Twitter’s newsletter program Revue, I was forced to rethink my options for getting out updates about my work and research. Many of you let me know that you appreciated getting regular news about my archival findings, reading log, and personal life while I was in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. You can find all of my newsletters in the carousel below. My new website platform, Squarespace, does indeed have a newsletter-sending function, but it’s quite expensive. For the time being, I figure I’ll just post my newsletter updates on my various social media pages and hope that interested parties will stay tuned.

When my research trip ended, however, I returned to the humdrum of dissertation writing and teaching. It’s already February and I can boast of having completed (as Anne Lamott so wonderfully put it in Bird by Bird) a “shitty first draft” of my first dissertation chapter. I’m now moving on to a second chapter that looks at the development of The Association des étudiants iraniens (AEI) into The Union des étudiants iraniens en France (UEIF).

In the fall semester, I taught “Europe in the Era of Total War,” with Prof. Kate Wroblewski. This (winter) semester, I’m teaching the “History of the Modern Middle East” with Prof. Juan Cole.

My colleague Markus Merin and I are the co-coordiantors for the European History Interdisciplinary Workshop for the 2023-23 academic year. On February 9, the EHW is hosting Prof. Lauren Stokes (Northwestern), who will be visiting Ann Arbor to speak about her recent book, Fear of the Family: Guest Workers and Family Migration in the Federal Republic of Germany.

A wintry January 25 at Central Camps (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor). Author’s photo.

This semester, I also have the privilege of auditing a seminar on postcolonialism and decoloniality. I’ve been able to dive deeply into the work of Frantz Fanon (1925–1961). I hope to write a seminar paper on the connections between Fanon’s thought and the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.

I have a couple other gigs this semester. I’m continuing work as a Graduate Student Instructional Consultant (GSIC) at the University’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT). In this position, I get to help other graduate students and faculty hone their pedagogical skills. I work with postdoctoral students on their teaching statements and conduct student feedback reports. New this term, I’m working with Prof. Yi-Li Wu on a new multi-volume project, the Cambridge History of Medicine. I’m helping Prof. Wu track down scholarship about eighteenth-century global medicine. If you’re at all interested in the global history of medicine, do get in touch with me.

From March 16–19, I’ll be in Detroit as part of the Society for French Historical Studies & the Western Society for French History’s 68th Annual Meeting: “Boundaries and Encounters.” On Saturday, March 18, I’ll be presenting in Session 4C, “Colonialism and Student Activism: Algeria, China, and Iran,” my paper, titled, “Political Exile, Migratory Careers, and the Union of Iranian Students in France (U.E.I.F.) in the 1960s and 1970s.”

My colleague, Rick Yoder, informed me that CUA Press has accepted a new anthology with primary sources on Jansenism into their Early Modern Sources series. I contributed a translation from the French of a Jansenist document. The Anthology should be published sometime in 2024.

I’m also excited to announce that Prof. Nader Vahabi, an Iranian sociologist in France, will be publishing an edited volume including an essay I’ve written on the concept of political exile through Éditions Orizons, to be released later this year.

I’ve also put in a few grant proposal applications for this summer and the next academic year. Keep your fingers crossed for me!