Ranin Kazemi
My dissertation, “ 'Neither Indians, Nor Egyptians': Social Protests and Shi'i Populism in the Making of the Anti-Tobacco Régie Movement in Qajar Iran,” traces the economic, social, and cultural origins of one of the earliest national revolutionary movements in the modern Middle East. Grounded in history from below and agrarian studies at Yale, this work challenges many of the most basic tenets of Iranian (and by extension Middle Eastern) historiography. To write my dissertation I have carried out extensive research in Iranian, Turkish, British, and American archives. I am completing this work with the support of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, among others. My dissertation committee consists of Abbas Amanat (chair), Alan Mikhail (History, Yale), Robert Harms (History, Yale), and Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan (Anthropology, Yale).
In addition to reviews in academic journals, I have written an entry in Encyclopedia Iranica, and I am currently serving as a guest editor for two forthcoming special issues in the Journal of the International Society for Iranian Studies and the Journal of Persianate Studies where my own articles will also appear. In the last few years I have have organized panels and presented my work at the annual meetings of The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), as well as at other academic forums.
My oral examination fields included Iran and the Ottoman Empire, 1500-Present; the Arab Middle East, 1798-Present; and Comparative Agro-Environmental History. I am currently serving as a Part Time Acting Instructor (PTAI) at the Yale Department of History, teaching a junior-year seminar (History 389J) titled “Social Conflict and Protest in the Modern Middle East.” I have also taught survey courses on the history of the modern Middle East and Iran since 1500. Further teaching interests include Agricultural and Environmental History of the Middle East, Gender and Sexuality in the Middle East, and Relations between the West and the Middle East.
