Newsletter: July 21, 2022
Research, reading, and reflection
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.
Research updates
During the 2020-21 academic year, I served as a co-coordinator for the University of Michigan, Rackham Graduate School Migration & Displacement Interdisciplinary Workshop.
Today, I submitted the relevant application documents to renew the European History Interdisciplinary Workshop for the 2022-23 academic year. Along with a colleague, Markus Merin, I will be co-coordinating this workshop—leading discussions about some of the most cutting-edge monographs in European history and facilitating discussions with graduate students about their own scholarship (dissertation chapters, research grants, etc.).
Earlier this week, I met with fellow co-authors of a forthcoming edited volume in French regarding the concept of exile in the Iranian diaspora. My chapter will include an investigation of Iranian students’ political activities in France as a case study of migrant political exile. From the 1950s onward, Iranian students gathered in the Union of Iranian Students in France (UEIF) to oppose the corruption and authoritarianism of the shah’s regime. I look at concrete examples of student activism, combining a historical lens with a sociological approach, to paint a clearer picture of the concepts of political exile, the migratory career, and the so-called “fourth socialization” of the migrant.
Interesting reads
I just received a batch of new book orders. The one I’m most excited about is Matthias D. Wüthrich’s 2006 book, Gott und das Nichtige: Eine Untersuchung zur Rede vom Nichtigen Ausgehend von 50 der kirchlichen Dogmatik Karl Barths. Wüthrich’s project is an extensive discussion of Barth’s conceptualization of evil and nothingness. In English, Christopher C. Green’s Doxological Theology: Karl Barth on Divine Providence, Evil, and the Angels (2011) focuses on many of the same questions as Wüthrich.
Do you have any suggestions regarding what I should read next?
