Biography
Pedram Partovi is a historian of the medieval and modern Muslim world. His current research focuses on the mass media as a vehicle for popular "civil religion" in modern Iran. In studying how Iranians have re-worked older courtly and devotional practices to inform modern ideas of the nation, he challenges standard, "top down" accounts of recent Iranian history as an irreconcilable struggle between the forces of radical Islam and secular nationalism. He previously held a visiting professor position in the Center for Global Islamic Studies at Lehigh University. Pedram has published articles in a number of journals including Visual Anthropology Review, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Iranian Studies, and Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Partovi received his Ph.D.from the University of Chicago in 2010.