Mehrzad Boroujerdi

Associate Professor, Political Science

Director, Middle Eastern Studies Program
Co-director, Religion, Media, and International Relations Project

Degree

Ph.D., American University, 1990

Specialties

Middle East, comparative politics, international relations

Personal Website

http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/mborouje/

Publications

“The Amorphous Modernity of Iranian Intellectuals,” chapter in Commitment and Authenticity: Intellectuals and State in Iran (ed., Negin Nabavi). Forthcoming from the University Press of Florida.

“Triumphs and Travails of Authoritarian Modernization in Iran,” chapter in Iran Under Riza Pahlavi (ed., Stephanie Cronin). London: Curzon Press, 2003.

"Subduing Globalization: The Challenge of the Indigenization Movement,” in Globalization and The Margins, edited by Richard Grant and John R. Short (New York: Palgrave, 2002).

"Viewing Violence and Terrorism in a Larger Context,” Syracuse University Magazine, vol. 18, no. 4 (Winter 2001-02).

"Iranian Islam and the Faustian Bargain of Western Modernity," Journal of Peace Research 34, no. 1 (February 1997):

Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996).  

Courses

Politics of the Middle East 

Research Interests

Professor Boroujerdi's research interests has so far focused on (a) how “Third-World” intellectual elites are coming to terms with the multifaceted challenge of modernity and cultural globalization, and (b) the intellectual history of the contemporary Middle East. In regard to the latter topic, he has been interested in studying what Middle Eastern intellectuals are writing regarding such ideas as civil society, secularism, human rights, democracy, and modernity. These deliberations are of immense importance since they affects prospects for political democratization in one of the most economically vital regions of the world.

Research Projects

Professor Boroujerdi is currently working on a book manuscript that deals with the legacy of authoritarian modernization in Iran in the 1920s and 1930s. These two decades represent an important period in Iranian history as it marks the transition from an antiquated empire to a modern state. Ironically, however, this is also one of the most understudied periods in modern Iranian intellectual history. The book deals with such questions as how successful were the ruling secular elite in purging Iranian political culture from its religious accretion? What types of debates were going on at that time among Iranian intellectuals concerning such issues as secularism, modernity, liberalism, and nationalism? How did Reza Shah’s secularist project fare compared to that of Atatürk in Turkey?