Political History of Modern Iran: Revolutions, Repression, and Resilience

This colloquium offers an introduction to the political and social history of modern Iran from the early twentieth century to the present. We will examine how Iran transformed from a dynastic society rooted in kinship and religious authority into a modern nation-state shaped by competing ideologies, mass political movements, and global pressures. The course begins with a brief overview of premodern Iran and the historiographical traditions that have shaped its modern narratives. We then trace Iran's role as a geopolitical buffer between imperial powers, the internal tensions between tradition and modernization, and the far-reaching consequences of the Constitutional Revolution (1905-11), which marked the beginning of Iran's twentieth-century transformation. We will study the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi (1921-41), whose top-down modernization reshaped the state and society and created space for religious institutions and actors to emerge as sources of popular political authority. The second half of the course focuses on the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah (1941-79), his clash with Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, the White Revolution, and the unrest that culminated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. We conclude by examining the Islamic Republic's formation, the Iran-Iraq War, and ongoing struggles over reform, civil rights, and modernization, with particular attention to youth and women's activism. This course is not only about engaging with academic literature but also about developing the tools to navigate information in a region often labeled volatile and media-hostile. To that end, we will work with a range of sources, including maps, films, news archives, and online research tools.