Media, Intellectuals, and Politics in the Islamic Republic: A Geometry of Overlapping Fields

What are the stakes in Iranian politics?  How do various media produce news in the Islamic Republic?  Why do the hippest works by the latest continental philosophers occupy premium shelf space in Tehran bookstores?  This lecture will reframe several key developments in post-revolutionary Iranian politics and media through the heuristic lens of field theory.  Positions in media, politics, and letters are taken in relation to one another, yet they are usually analyzed as static and resolute claims in a general public sphere.  If we want to understand why we are regularly surprised by post-revolutionary Iran, we need a relational theory to rethink the Islamic Republic.

Kevan Harris is a comparative-historical sociologist and the Associate Director of Princeton University's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies.  His research focuses on political economy, welfare systems, economic history, and social movements in Western Asia and Northern Africa. His current book project concentrates on post-revolutionary Iranian state and society.