May 4, 2012
Outline of the Panels
8:30 – 10:30 am: Panel 1: What is modern Iranian history and why do we study it?
This panel mostly deals with concepts by exploring what do we mean by “modern” (which is a chronological and qualitative-normative category mostly derived from European history) and “Iranian” (versus Persian or Persianate) but also use and abuse of Iranian history and implications of historiography in political, educational and cultural domains inside Iran and out. To what extend modern political and cultural boundaries have determined writing of modern Iranian historiography and its national (and nationalist) identity?
Moderated by Abbas Amanat, Professor of History, Yale University
11:00 am – 1:00 pm: Panel 2: Is there something wrong with how modern Iranian history has been written so far?
This panel explores the state of scholarship in comparative perspective surveying the existing historiography, its achievements and, more importantly, its perceived shortcomings with a view to the historiographies of other parts of the world (such as Ottoman/Turkish and the Arab World, European, Russian or Latin American). Are there aspects of the past that have not yet been fully explored or remain unstudied? Is the field still prisoner of an older tradition of Oriental Studies (and Orientalism) with its focus on philology and religious studies? Is there anything exceptional in Iranian Modern history that makes it difficult to situate within Middle Eastern Studies or in the curricula of the History departments? This panel also asks whether transregional notions such as Persianate or Islamicate are to be preferred or whether Iranian modern history ought to be looked at as part of transnational and global history?
Moderated by Alan Mikhail, Assistant Professor of History, Yale University
2:30 pm – 4:00 pm: Panel 3: Sources for the study of modern Iranian history: Lack of access or lack of imagination?
This panel explores accessibility or the sources or their lack of as well as the thorny issue of the sources, including the politics of access (or denial of access) within and outside Iran as well as the value and methods of publishing sources and impacts of the cyberspace, digitization and other new technologies.
Moderated by Narges Erami, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Yale University
4:30 pm – 6:00 pm: Panel 4: Potentials, approaches and debates
Explores the purpose and the themes of an international conference on the historiography of Modern Iran taking a practical approach and brainstorming about the best structure for the planned conference in 2013.
Moderated by Oliver Bast, Visiting Fellow in Iranian Studies, Yale University and Senior Lecturer [Associate Professor] in Middle Eastern History and Persian, University of Manchester