Education
Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ
M.Div., Francis Grimké Scholar; expected May 2029.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies
Ph.D. in History, December 2026 (dissertation defended July 28, 2026). M.A. in History, June 2022.
Dissertation: “General Intelligence: Iranian Student Activism and the Documentary Politics of Sojourn in France, 1945–1979.” Committee: Profs. Joshua Cole (chair), Rita Chin, Adi Saleem, and Afshin Matin-Asgari.
University of Wisconsin–Madison, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Language Institute (MEDLI)
Intermediate Persian.
University of California, Los Angeles
B.A. in History, cum laude with College Honors; minor in French.
Publications
Book Chapters
Heydari, Keanu. “L’exil politique, les carrières migratoires et l’Union des étudiants iraniens en France : Une étude de cas” (“Political Exile, Migratory Careers, and the Union of Iranian Students in France: A Case Study”). In L’exil iranien, la diversité d’un phénomène (Iranian Exile: The Diversity of a Phenomenon), edited by Nader Vahabi. Errances. Orizons, 2023.
Book Reviews
Heydari, Keanu. Review of Apocalypses in Context: Apocalyptic Currents Through History, 2nd ed., edited by Kelly J. Murphy and Justin Jeffcoat Schedtler. H-Environment, H-Net Reviews, August 2026.
Heydari, Keanu. Review of Repeating Revolutions: The French Revolution and the Algerian War, by Timothy Scott Johnson. Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture 25, no. 1 (2026).
Translations
Heydari, Keanu, trans. “Syria After Assad.” By Azzam Amin. New International, January 19, 2026.
Heydari, Keanu, trans. “Washington is no Ally.” By Arnaud Le Gall. New International, December 19, 2025.
Heydari, Keanu, trans. “The Global March to Gaza.” By Meriem Hadjal. New International, July 6, 2025.
Heydari, Keanu, trans. “Öcalan’s Last Call.” By Alice Celik. New International, May 23, 2025.
Heydari, Keanu, trans. “Turkey’s Political Crisis & Democratic Movement.” By Emre Öngün. New International, April 17, 2025.
Heydari, Keanu, trans. “The Defeat of Biopolitics.” By Pierre-Yves Cadalen. New International, April 7, 2025.
Heydari, Keanu, trans. “Underground Jansenist Journalism: The Nouvelles ecclésiastiques.” In Jansenism: An International Anthology, edited by Shaun Blanchard and Richard T. Yoder. Catholic University of America Press, 2024.
Public-Facing Work
Heydari, Keanu. “Casualty and Legitimacy: A Post-1979 Perspective on Iran’s 2026 Mass Violence.” Clio and the Contemporary (blog), March 6, 2026.
Heydari, Keanu. “What We Lose When Confessions Are Treated as Optional.” The Presbyterian Outlook, February 12, 2026.
Heydari, Keanu. “What’s Really In Our ‘#1’ Plastics?” Ecology Center (blog), December 16, 2025.
Heydari, Keanu. “When AI Comes to Town: The Ypsilanti Data Center and Environmental Responsibility.” Ecology Center (blog), December 2, 2025.
Heydari, Keanu. “The Ecology Center is Leading on Lead: From Crisis to Leadership.” Ecology Center (blog), October 30, 2025.
Heydari, Keanu. “Reading, Remembering, and Reorienting for Comprehensive Exams.” Clio and the Contemporary (blog), October 22, 2025.
Heydari, Keanu. “Iran, Israel, & the Logic of Escalation.” New International, June 19, 2025.
Heydari, Keanu. “Threads of Belonging, Echoes of Exile.” New International, November 18, 2024.
Heydari, Keanu. “Feature Archive: Iranian Student Activism and Social Movements in Paris.” French History Network Blog (blog), May 2, 2022.
Honors and Awards
Francis Grimké Scholarship, Princeton Theological Seminary
Rackham Doctoral Intern Fellowship, University of Michigan
Rackham Research, Study and Travel Grant, University of Michigan
William Shorrock Travel Award, French Colonial Historical Society
Classical Translations Contest (Middle East Studies), University of Michigan
Rackham International Research Award, University of Michigan
Rackham Language Training Grant, University of Michigan
History Department Service Award, UCLA
Invited Lectures
“Earth Day 2026: AI, Data Centers, and the Hidden Environmental Costs”
Michigan Friends Center, Chelsea, MI.
“The French Revolution: Human Rights and the Contradictions of Universalism”
Origins of the Modern World (Prof. Elena M. Rosario), Fairfield University. Zoom.
“The European Union and Its Current Geopolitical Challenges”
History of European Integration (Prof. Dario Gaggio), University of Michigan.
“Religion, Collaboration, Resistance: Interpreting Religious Reactions to Nazism in Europe”
Europe in the Era of Total War (Prof. Kate Wroblewski), University of Michigan.
Conference Papers and Workshops
Papers Read at Academic Conferences and Symposia
“Making Barth Useful? American Reception and the Critique of Religion”
American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, Denver, CO. Forthcoming.
“Testimony Against the Grain: Surveillance, Knowledge Production, and Iranian Student Politics in Postwar France”
Migration Beyond Emergency: Tracing Testimony and Diaspora Symposium, University College Dublin. Zoom.
“Licensing Dissent: Iranian Student Activism, Police Surveillance, and the Grammar of ‘Liberty’ in Postwar Paris, 1946–1979”
Society for French Historical Studies Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA.
“Celibate Gay Christians, Tradwives, and Christian Nationalists: The Discursive Regime of Mandatory Heterosexuality in Contemporary American Evangelicalism”
American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, San Diego, CA.
“Constructing Diaspora Politics: The Case of Long-Distance Nationalism in Iranian Student Activism in France in the 1960s and 70s”
Social Science History Association Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada.
“A Secret Desire for Liberation: Iranian Student Radicals’ Imagination of France, National Liberation, and Artistic Development in the 1950s”
French Colonial Historical Society, Charlottesville, VA.
“Exit, Loyalty, Suffering: Iranian Student Political Activism and Masculinity in Postwar France”
Society for French Historical Studies Annual Conference, Hempstead, NY.
“Kharej az keshvar: The Psychic Afterlives of Diasporic Iranian Nostalgic Imaginaries in France”
Social Science History Association Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.
“Political Exile, Migratory Careers, and the Union of Iranian Students in France (U.E.I.F.) in the 1960s and 1970s”
Society for French Historical Studies and Western Society for French History Joint Annual Conference, Detroit, MI.
“Celibate Gay Christians: Vies singulières devenues d’étranges poèmes”
American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, Denver, CO.
“Persian Shah, Parisian Shah: Cultural Anxiety, Orientalism, and Militarization in Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar’s 1873 Visit to France”
Modern Travel, Modern Landscapes: Connections and Exchanges in Europe, c. 1850–1950 Conference, Durham University Institute for Advanced Study. Zoom.
Workshops
“How Difference Becomes Political: Iranian Students in Postwar Paris and the Politics of Belonging”
Divergent Diversity: In Dialogue, University of Michigan History Inclusion Council.
“Reimagining Exile: Decolonial Perspectives on Iranian Student Movements in France, 1945–1979”
Towards a Decolonial Methodology, Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, University of Michigan.
“Iranian Students in France in the Postwar Years”
The Consequences of Colonialism, Capitalism, and Empire: Looking Out from the Archive, Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, University of Michigan.
“Nostalgia, Diaspora, & Iranian Neo-Monarchists”
Violence, Witnessing, and Recovering the Archives, Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, University of Michigan.
“Persian Shah, Parisian Shah: Cultural Anxiety, Orientalism, and Militarization in Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar’s 1873 Visit to France”
Exploring Topographies: Real and Imaginary, Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, University of Michigan.
Research Experience
Archival Researcher and Translator, International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam
Digitized and inventoried the Confederation of Iranian Students (National Union) oral-history audio collection (COLL00061) on site at the invitation of Prof. Afshin Matin-Asgari, then transcribed and translated the Persian-language interviews. Translated and annotated some fifty Persian-language documents from the CISNU papers (ARCH02886, ARCH02952) as bilingual editions with scholarly apparatus.
Graduate Student Researcher, University of Michigan
Curated bibliographic data under Prof. Yi-Li Wu’s supervision for the forthcoming Cambridge History of Medicine series (vol. 5, Global Eighteenth-Century Medicine).
Graduate Student Researcher, University of Michigan
Established a bibliography of contemporary writing on affect, speed, mobility, and slowness under Prof. Helmut Puff’s supervision for his 2023 publication, The Antechamber: Toward a History of Waiting (Stanford University Press).
Graduate Student Researcher, University of Michigan
Researched and contextualized primary sources under Profs. Jeffrey Veidlinger and Rita Chin’s supervision for a collaborative public-history project with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the digital collection “Everyday Encounters with Fascism.”
Teaching Experience
All courses taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Instructor of Record
History 195, “The Writing of History: Student Activism & Resistance”
Graduate Student Instructor
History 322, “The Origins of Nazism” (Prof. Scott Spector)
History 312, “History of European Integration” (Prof. Dario Gaggio)
History 443 / Islam 443 / Mideast 487, “Modern Middle East History” (Prof. Juan Cole)
History 314, “France and the World in the 20th Century” (Prof. Joshua Cole)
History 318, “Europe in the Era of Total War” (Profs. Joshua Cole, Kate Wroblewski)
History 313 / French 344, “The Revolutionary Century” (Prof. Joshua Cole)
History 386 / Judaic 386 / Germanic 391, “The Holocaust” (Prof. Jeffrey Veidlinger)
Grader
History 240, “The World Since 1492” (Prof. Douglas Northrop)
History 340 / Mideast 340 / MENAS 340 / REES 340, “From Genghis Khan to the Taliban: Modern Central Asia” (Prof. Douglas Northrop)
Professional Development and Service
Council Member, Student Government Association, Princeton Theological Seminary
Graduate Partner, Sidney Fine Teaching Partnership (with Prof. Douglas Northrop), Department of History, University of Michigan
Co-designed a new 300-level global history course, “Empire as a Modern System: Eurasia and the World in Comparative and Connective Perspective, 1750–Present,” drafting the syllabus, curating a primary-source packet, and designing a sequence of evidence-centered “sources labs.” Developed AI-aware assessment models emphasizing staged drafting, in-class writing, and source-grounded portfolios, and delivered a Canvas-ready course materials package, including assignment prompts and grading rubrics, for future offerings.
Personal Assistant to Prof. Robin Mitchell, Department of History, University at Buffalo
Provide administrative and editorial support: CV and website maintenance, correspondence, manuscript editing, and syllabus accessibility remediation.
Environmental Storytelling Intern, The Ecology Center, Ann Arbor (Rackham Doctoral Intern Fellowship Program)
Wrote public-facing feature stories, toolkits, and press materials; translated technical research into accessible language; contributed to digital communications planning and campaign strategy.
Graduate Student Instructional Consultant, Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT), University of Michigan
Conducted 50+ teaching observations and prepared pedagogical reports; advised on syllabus design and teaching statements; integrated equity-informed approaches into instructional development; interpreted qualitative and quantitative data to strengthen teaching practices.
Designed and facilitated graduate-instructor workshops: “Designing for Access: Integrating Accessibility into Everyday GSI Teaching” (May 12, 2026), a two-hour synchronous session introducing Universal Design for Learning as a framework for graduate teaching practice; “Planting the SEED: Structuring Equity, Engagement, and Discourse” (May 15, 2025), a co-facilitated session on discussion-based teaching; and “Critical Dialogue in Community: Navigating Moments of Friction, Tension, and Conflict as GSIs” (May 16, 2024), a co-facilitated session on managing conflict within instructional teams and classroom discussions.
Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) Seminar, Rackham Graduate School and CRLT, University of Michigan
Community Engaged Course Design Workshop (CECDW), Rackham Program in Public Scholarship and the Edward Ginsberg Center
Ecclesial Service
Inquirer for the Ministry of Word and Sacrament, Presbytery of Detroit, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Ordained Deacon, First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor (three-year term)
Taught adult education and confirmation; served on the Worship Committee.
Editorial and Public Engagement
The New International, Editor and Translator
Life Under the Word, Founder and author, theology blog