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K-State Today

March 26, 2014

Historian Ranin Kazemi wins prestigious fellowship

Submitted by Louise Breen

Ranin Kazemi

Ranin Kazemi, assistant professor of history, has been awarded the prestigious Prince Dr. Sabbar Farman-Farmaian Research Project Fellowship from the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, an advanced Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The fellowship provides recipients focusing on the social history of Iran with funding for six months of research and writing in residence at the institute.

A specialist in Middle Eastern and North African history, Kazemi will use the fellowship to complete his first book, "Neither Indians, Nor Egyptians: Poverty, Protest and Populism in Iran, 1850-1892." The book will take as its centerpiece the tobacco protest of 1891-92, examining the nexus between commercialized agriculture, famine, subsistence riots, social unrest and the roots of political Islam and Iranian nationalism during the 19th century. Kazemi's work will contribute to the scholarship not only of the Middle East, but also environmental history, and will offer innovative insights on the intersection between agriculture and popular politics on a global scale.

At K-State, Kazemi, now in his second year as a faculty member, teaches a variety of undergraduate courses in his specialization, including History of the Persian/Iranian Civilization, the Modern Middle East, and Women, Gender and Sexuality in Islam.

He also teaches a graduate seminar on the Middle East for the interdisciplinary security studies program. In addition, Kazemi teaches a more general undergraduate course in global history, World History since 1450, and a graduate seminar in historical writing, historical Methods in Security Studies.

Kazemi will give at least one public lecture for the International Institute of Social History, and have the opportunity to interact with an international group of scholars working on the social history of the Middle East and many other parts of the world while he is in Amsterdam next semester.