Persian (near-native fluency), Arabic, Hindi/Urdu, and French (research competency)
Bio
Pedram Partovi is a historian of the medieval and modern Muslim world. His current research focuses on the history of youth movements and their role in creating and disrupting the political order in Iran and the wider Middle East. This project springs from his earlier work on popular Iranian cinema, which in its depictions of male heroism problematized the efforts of state agents to eliminate or coopt in the name of modern "progress'' the often informal youth associations that had long organized urban public life. In studying these "reckless" youths on the margins of law and order, he challenges assumptions about the supremacy of the "state" that have characterized much of social scientific writing on the modernization of politics and society in the Middle East. Pedram earned his doctorate with honors from the University of Chicago. He also received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Binghamton University and Washington University in St. Louis, respectively. He previously held a visiting professor position in the Center for Global Islamic Studies at Lehigh University and has taught courses at the University of Michigan, DePaul University, and Columbia College. Pedram's first book is entitled Popular Iranian Cinema before the Revolution: Family and Nation in Filmfarsi (Routledge, 2017). He has also published articles in a number of journals including the Journal of Persianate Studies, Visual Anthropology Review, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Iranian Studies, and Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
