Keanu M. Heydari

Readings in twentieth-century European thought, with recurring attention to Foucault and his interlocutors. These essays test what theories of power and subjectivity can do when pressed against particular texts. The aim throughout is to treat concepts as tools with specifiable limits.

Essays on how historians argue. The pieces gathered here examine the concepts historians use and the claims those concepts license. Reviews of recent scholarship appear alongside essays on temporality and comparison, with sustained interest in what separates a demonstration from a resemblance.

Essays on exile and the political life of displaced communities, with particular attention to the Iranian diaspora. The work here draws on my research into Iranian student activism in postwar France. It extends that research to contemporary formations, including the uses of nostalgia in diasporic political movements.

Essays on scholarly life and formation. This is where I write about graduate training and the craft of research. It is also where I reflect on an academic vocation pursued between history and theology.