The Iranian-American Intelligentsia in U.S. Foreign Affairs: Ahistoricism, Anti-Structuralism, and the Production of Idealism

Abstract This article challenges the anti-structural and ahistorical turn in recent histories of the Iranian Revolution. Tracing the genealogy of this anti-structural turn to the publication of Foucault’s writings on Iran, the author argues that the continued decline of US-Iran relations, coupled with hostility toward anti-imperialist scholarship in US academia, has created the conditions for an ahistoricism in US-based scholarship on Iran. This turn is further exacerbated by the lack of accessible archives to enable rigorous analyses of the Revolution. The article concludes by distinguishing between an intellectual, one who challenges the status quo to create a more just world, and a functionary, whose scholarly contributions are guided by the precepts of foundation funding and the State Department. Ultimately the article calls for a transformation in Iranian Studies toward radical intellectualism.