Iranian Nationalism & Nostalgia: Fragment on a research interest
On 15 October 2021, I delivered a short presentation at the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies Workshop on “Violence, Witnessing, and Recovering the Archives” entitled, “Nostalgia, Diaspora, and Iranian Neo-Monarchists.” My talk focused on the political and cultural functions of nostalgia by a segment of the contemporary Iranian diaspora, particularly in the United States. In thinking here through nationalism and nostalgia in the American case, I hope to explore in my dissertation the ways in which memory was and is utilized, revised, and weaponized by the Iranian diaspora in France.
Elsewhere: Society for the Study of French History Blog Post
I wrote a blog post for the Feature Archive section of the Society for the Study of French History (UK) on Iranian student movements and social activism in Paris.
Elsewhere: Tears of Eden/Uncertain Podcast (II)
My friend and colleague Katherine Spearing invited me back to the Tears of Eden/Uncertain podcast to discuss my article about Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Assault and Humiliation. Find the episode page here or listen through Spotify below.
On Temptation (Versuchung) in Bonhoeffer (I & II)
The reading from the New Testament on Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent, comes from Luke 4:1-13. This pericope concerns the temptation of Christ by the devil while he was in the wilderness. On reading commentaries about this passage, I came across multiple references to Bonhoeffer's essay, “Temptation,” found in various places and translated in at least two editions. I myself used the translation offered in the English edition of Bonhoeffer's Works (vol. 15, pp. 386-415). Reading the text for the first time, I was surprised by the controversial claims Bonhoeffer makes. His essay is in many respects an extension of a radical Lutheran epistemology. The very word temptation receives a thoroughgoing redefinition.
Jesus as Victim of Sexual Humiliation & Assault: Preliminary Thoughts with Tombs and Bonhoeffer
Victims of sexual humiliation and abuse likewise receive the exhaustion of the rage of the world in their bodies. Living day by day with the stigma and scars of their crisis, they suffer with the crucified one who truly knows their pain in a direct, visceral, and experiential way.
Workflows: Research Practices & Digital Infrastructure
In May 2020, I published "Workflows" on my blog. In July of that year, I published a sequel—meant to be one in a series of posts about research productivity—entitled "'Welcome' to Graduate School." Unfortunately, the Workflows series died with that second post. The outline I had envisioned in the first post was far too optimistic, while some of the topics I'd wanted to write about fell far beyond my expertise. With this new post, I hope to revive the series by sharing with you my experiences in the archives. While you can keep up with my activities in Paris through my Newsletter, this post will include some deeper thinking on my current analog and physical practices for retaining information without losing my mind. While reading the inaugural post isn't essential, it does provide a list of literature to which I'm indebted in shaping my thinking about research, time management, and productivity. The second post provides a snapshot of my methods for capturing data and saving it. I will revisit some of these points here, showing how my process of information capture has changed (out of necessity and by choice).
Elsewhere: Forms Podcast
My Twitter friends @henryjwallis, @YAgamben and I (@WoeToChorazin) recorded a new podcast on Forms regarding Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's address to clergy in Paris, The Church and the Kingdom. Be sure to listen to it today!
Towards a Socialistic Theology (I & II)
This distinction is perhaps one jumping off point, a conceptual springboard, from which we can begin to expand on pressing ideas in the air among left-wing Christians today. Christians together “constitute the covenant people of God” (135). What this means is that the texture of reconciliation with God must not, cannot, and will not begin with individual people reconciled to an individual God; it begins, much to the contrary, with a storied God redeeming his beloved people in space and time as the fulfillment of his freely willed determination to be the God of love in freedom, the God who wills to be with human beings for all eternity. Gorman terms the individual components of the Gospel as its “benefits.”
Exteriorizing Subjectivity: Snapchat & Pharmacopornographic Biocapitalism
Welcome to the pharmacopornographic regime. Digital screens, monitors, and interfaces of every size buzz, pulsate, and project wave-particles of light into the air, all around us, twenty-four hours a day. For those born after the advent of Web 2.0 (at the new millennium), there has never been a period of non-digitally mediated subjectivity. The entanglements of technology, late-modern capitalism, and our use of technology in the context of late-modern capitalism raise questions of baffling complexity and of intense urgency.
Elsewhere: Migration and Displacement Interdisciplinary Workshop at UofM
"According to UNHCR, the number of forcibly displaced people both within countries and across borders as a result of persecution, conflict, or generalized violence has grown by over 50 per cent in the last 10 years; there were 43.3 million forcibly displaced people in 2009, and the figure was 70.8 million by the end of 2018 (UNHCR, 2019). Today 1 out of every 108 people in the world is displaced." (Source)
Workflows: "Welcome" to Graduate School
Perhaps I made a mistake not getting a Master's degree before I applied for Ph.D. programs in history. Perhaps I made a mistake in not taking substantial time off after I got my Bachelor's degree. Perhaps, even, I should have considered more lucrative career options — in translation work, public relations, marketing, etc. Nevertheless, here I stand, I can do no other: in the fall of 2020, I will begin my third year in the History Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, working with Prof. Joshua Cole, author most recently of Lethal Provocation: The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria (2019, Cornell University Press). With the fall, "hell year" will commence: the year of my cohort's preliminary examinations (elsewhere called comprehensive exams, or "comps").
Elsewhere: Tears of Eden/Uncertain Podcast
My friend and former colleague, Katherine Spearing, is a seminary graduate with experience in ministry and churches in the U.S. and Central America. She invited me to speak on her podcast, "Uncertain," about spiritual and sexual abuse in the church.
Workflows
I am sitting at my desk in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Some allege that summer has begun, but I’ve paid no mind to whispers that threaten the threads of tenacity remaining in my psyche to finish seminar papers, take language courses, do research, and prepare for the third year of a Ph.D. program in history at the University of Michigan. With two years behind me, I have a virtual ocean of books, articles, conference papers, dissertations, and lectures to read and review before my comprehensive exams at the end of the 2021 academic year. To my left, an unkempt pile of assiduously documented and extensive book notes brushes against my 2014 laptop—ancient now, according to Apple. With corners fraying, the pages of yellow legal paper are well worn—some are tattered.