Newsletter: April 8, 2024
A view of the waterfront at Bandemer Park in Ann Arbor, MI.
Welcome to my newsletter and blog. 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.
Updates
Today marks the start of the thirteenth week of Winter Semester 2024 at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. As I near the end of my sixth year in the Ph.D. program, I can hardly believe this much time has elapsed. My last Newsletter update was on September 29, 2023. How time flies!
This year, I served as a Graduate Student Mentor (GSM) for the History 809 pedagogy sequence in the fall semester with Prof. John Carson. I am also employed as a Graduate Student Instructional Consultant (GSIC) with the University’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT). In this capacity, I help fellow graduate students develop teaching philosophy statements for the job market, observe classroom sessions in real-time and provide qualitative and quantitative feedback, and strategize with instructors to help improve their pedagogy. I plan to reprise this role next year. This semester, I also worked as a GSI for Prof. Scott Spector’s class, “The Origins of Nazism.”
As I mentioned in my last update, in November 2023, I presented a paper at the Social Science History Association Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., entitled, “Kharej az keshvar: The Psychic Afterlives of Diasporic Iranian Nostalgic Imaginaries in France.” This paper explored the ways in which Iranian migrants in France have and continue to navigate identity, nostalgia, and displacement. The study delved into the roles that Iranian migrants play in political coalitions abroad, arguing that such participation often reinforces discourses of exile and nostalgia, thereby disconnecting them from current cultural and political life in Iran. Positioned at the intersection of diaspora and transnationalism studies, the paper employed a constructivist approach to Iranian diasporic identity. Using archival research on French surveillance of Iranian student activists post-WWII, and newsletters from Iranian monarchists in France between November 2022 and March 2023, I conducted a historical and comparative analysis to explore enduring themes of diasporic nostalgia, place, and exile among Iranians in France. The paper concludes with a discussion of the concept of “discursive metabolisis” to describe how discourse coalitions around narratives of Iranian identity consolidate in response to setbacks, driven by grievance politics and a sense of ethno-cultural superiority. I argued that this framework is more aligned with the idea of Lauren Berlant’s “cruel optimism” than with any emancipatory potential, reflecting the troubled engagement of the Iranian diaspora with its past and present.
In March 2024, I presented a paper at the Society for French Historical Studies Annual Conference in Hempstead, NY., entitled, “Exit, Loyalty, Suffering: Iranian Student Political Activism and Masculinity in Postwar France.” This paper explored the experiences of Iranian men in France, focusing on their navigations through the concepts of exit, voice, and loyalty as outlined by Albert O. Hirschman in his 1970 monograph. The paper examined the dynamics of both political privileges and cultural marginalization faced by these men, specifically through the lens of marriage and gender relations. I drew parallels between their experiences in Iran and France to offer insights into broader discourses on masculinity, displacement, and identity within the Francophone world. The Iranian diaspora in France, particularly students and temporary residents, served as a case study to understand the complexities of cultural integration, social adjustment, and the exercise of voice amidst political and class struggles. The paper detailed the historical context of Iranian students in France during the 1960s, their engagement with the social fabric of France, and the political activities of the Union des Étudiants Iraniens en France (U.E.I.F.). It highlighted the challenges and negotiations around gender norms, political affiliations, and identity formation, emphasizing the role of marriage in social integration and the varied economic and social trajectories of these migrants.
In May 2024, I will present a paper at the French Colonial Historical Society conference at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA., entitled, “A Secret Desire for Liberation: Iranian Student Radicals’ Imagination of France, National Liberation, and Artistic Development in the 1950s.” The paper proposal was awarded a 2024 William Shorrock Travel Award to defray cost of attending the conference. This paper will explore the role of France as metonymy for liberation (as construed by radical Iranian students in the immediate postwar period) from oppressive colonial and neo-colonial incursions in Iran at the hands of Britain and the Soviet Union in the diasporic political imaginary. This unusual constellation of transnational intellectual production will raise the question of strategic political intimacies enmeshed in colonial contexts.
For this summer, I was accepted into the Department’s History Summer Writing Institute (HSWI), which will take place from May-July. I will use this time to both revise my first and second chapters as well as continue working on drafts of chapters three, four, and five. I’m not planning to return to Europe or conduct further archival research over the summer. I’m excited to share with you all my continued progress on the dissertation, which I’m hoping to defend during the Spring/Summer 2025 term.
