Was Iran's 1979 Revolution an Islamic revolution? Many people say no, it was not. So if that's the case, then why did Iranians vote to transform Iran into an Islamic republic shortly after the revolution? And how can an Islamic state also operate as a republic? These are two opposing ideas - one represents the rule of the people and the other rule of the divine. 

My guest for this episode is Dr. Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, a professor and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, where he is also the Director of the Sharmin & Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies. He has written extensively on the topics of Iran, the Iranian revolution, social theory, and Islamist political thought in different journals and book chapters. Currently, he is working on a project on Mystical Modernity, a comparative study of the philosophy of history and political theory of Walter Benjamin and Ali Shariati.

He is the author of three books, including slam and Dissent in Post-Revolutionary Iran, Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment, and Remembering Akbar: Inside the Iranian Revolution.

To learn more about Dr. Ghamari-Tabrizi, you can visit his academic homepage.

Here is a Revolutionary song by Iranian women... it's a song about happiness & not being afraid... 

In addition, below are links to other episodes about Iran:

S2E34: Iran's History of Hijab & Women's Rights, Dr. Janet Afary

S2E33: Iranians of the 1979 Revolution, Dr. Naghmeh Sohrabi

S2E25: Iran-U.S. Diplomacy, Dr. Vali Nasr

S1E25: Iran's Leadership, Government Structure & Religion, Dr. Vali Nasr

Adel

Host of the History Behind News podcast

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