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My name is Keanu Heydari. I’m a historian of nineteenth and twentieth century Europe & French cultural, intellectual, and migration history. I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I’m a doctoral candidate in History at the Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I’m an alumnus of the University of California, Los Angeles (B.A., History, French language minor, 2017).

I research nineteenth- and twentieth-century French cultural and intellectual history and its global contexts. My earlier graduate work examined questions about the institutionalization and instrumentalization of laïcité in the late nineteenth century. My current research project focuses on the out-migration of Iranians (especially intellectuals and cultural leaders) from Tehran to Paris before and after the 1953 coup d’état.

For the 2020-21 academic year, I was a co-coordinator for the University of Michigan, Rackham Graduate School Migration & Displacement Interdisciplinary Workshop. Click here to learn more.

I am also interested in the broader currents of modern European intellectual history, especially the contributions of Michel Foucault (power-knowledge and critical discourse studies), Jacques Lacan (psychoanalysis), Jean-François Lyotard (postmodern conceptions of justice), and Étienne Balibar (critique of “equaliberty,” liberalism, and the nation-state).

The winding course of my life has also provided many opportunities to be immersed in critical New Testament studies and the history of theology. I read broadly in the field of New Testament studies and am finding a home in the “apocalyptic turn,” particularly in the work of Martinus C. de Boer, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, and Douglas A Campbell.

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Freelance Work

• Editing and copy-editing
• Book reviews
• Translation work (French—English)
• Archival work and data management

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Work Experience

Graduate Student Mentor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
(Winter Semester 2021)
History 808 Pedagogy Sequence I

Graduate Student Instructor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
(Winter Semester 2021)
Prof. Joshua Cole—“Empire, War, and Modernity: France and the World in the 20th Century“ History 314

Graduate Student Instructor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
(Fall Semester 2020)
Prof. Joshua Cole—“Europe in the Age of Total War“ History 318

Student Research Associate at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
(Spring/Summer Semester 2020)
Prof. Helmut Puff—In Summer 2020, I worked with Prof. Helmut Puff (Elizabeth L. Eisenstein Collegiate Professor of History and Germanic Languages) through the Germanic Languages & Literatures department (LSA) as a Student Temporary Research Associate (I).

Graduate Student Instructor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
(Winter Semester 2020)
Prof. Joshua Cole—“The Revolutionary Century: France, 1789-1871” History 313/French 344

Graduate Student Instructor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
(Fall Semester 2019)
Prof. Jeffrey Veidlinger—“The Holocaust: The Fate of The Jews, 1933-1949” History 386/Judaic 386/Germanic 391

Research Intern at Pacific Crossroads Church Los Angeles
(Aug. 2017 – Jun. 2018)
I worked with Rankin Wilbourne to assist his research project and to learn from and participate in various modes of pastoral work and ministry. Wilbourne’s book was published in 2019 by David C Cook as The Cross Before Me: Reimagining the Way to the Good Life.

Archivist at Air Quality Management Services (AQMS), LLC Los Angeles
(Jun. 2009 – Jul. 2015)

My roles at AQMS, LLC included:

• Creating digital content models to effectively manage, search, and interpret large amounts of historical and environmental data using Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access
• Researching socio-geographic patterns in the Greater L.A. Area to discover potential target demographics for subsidiary initiatives
• Synthesizing pertinent updates in environmental law into quarterly reports and contextualizing changes through adjacent trace reports
• Designing and planning for distribution of promotional materials, including websites for subsidiary organizations using software in the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite
• Facilitating strategy meetings and introducing team building exercises to facilitate creative dialogue