Mapping the Role of Intellectuals in Iranian Modern and Contemporary History

In Mapping the Role of Intellectuals in Iranian Modern and Contemporary History, Jahanbegloo and contributors examine the role of Iranian intellectuals in the history of Iranian modernity. They trace the contributions of intellectuals in the construction of national identity and the Iranian democratic debate, analyzing how intellectuals balanced indebtedness to the West with the issue of national identity in Iran. Recognizing how intellectual elites became beholden to political powers, the contributors demonstrate the trend that intellectuals often opted for cultural dissent rather than ideological politics.

Ali Ansari is Professor in Modern History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he is also the founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies.

Ramin Jahanbegloo is Professor and Vice Dean at Jindal Global Law School, India, and Director of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre on Nonviolence and Peace Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University, India.

Homa Katouzian is the Roshan Cultural Institute Academic Visitor in Iranian Studies, St Antony's College, and Member of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford.

Haideh Moghissi is an associate professor of sociology and women's studies at Atkinson College, York University, Toronto. Before leaving Iran 1984, she was a senior archivist in the Iran National Archives. She was a founder of the National Union of Women and member of its first executive board and the editorial voard of Barabari (Equality) and Zanan Dar Mobarezeh (Women in Struggle).

Nasrin Rahimieh is Howard Baskerville Professor of Humanities in the Department of Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, USA