academic scholarship:
current book project: The Geopolitics of Expertise
2025
“Review of How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare by Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez,” Iranian Studies. 1-3. https://doi:10.1017/irn.2025.12
2024
“Review of Elastic Empire: Refashioning war through aid in Palestine by Lisa Bhungalia, Stanford: Stanford University Press https://doi.org/10.1002/nad.12188
2022
“Navigating the ‘Middle East’ in Washington: Diasporic Experts and the Power of Multiplicitous Diplomacy,” Social Text. 40(3):152. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-9771091
2021
“Golden Boys, Bros, and Barbecues: Gendered Occidentalism and the Shaping of US Policy in the Middle East.” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 44 (1): 91–106. https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12441.
“NatSec Feminism: Women Security Experts and the US Counterterror State.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 46 (2): 361–86. https://doi.org/10.1086/710808.
2018
“In Times of Crisis: Middle East Policy between the Counterterror State and the Marketplace of Ideas.” Critical Studies on Security, August, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/21624887.2018.1500053
“Masco, Joseph. The Theater of Operations: National Security Affect from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 2014.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 23 (4): 856–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12747.2014 (Book review)
2014
“The Rise of ‘Youth Pop’ Films in Contemporary Iran,” in Iranian Cinema in a Global Context: Institutions, Policy, and Form. Eds. Peter Decherney and Blake Atwood. New York, NY: Routledge.
public scholarship:
2026
“Hedging for War: How Washington’s Foreign Policy Experts Blame Trump for a War with Iran They Helped Legitimate” (Security in Context, March 21)
2025
“(Mis) Understanding Iran’s Foreign Policy from Washington” (Security in Context Roundtable, Sept 12)
“Understanding Iran’s Grand Strategy: A discussion with Vali Nasr” (Security in Context, July 10)
“Israel’s Aggression Against Iran” (Jadaliyya, June 14)
2023
“Debunking Expertise and Finding Collective Knowledge with Negar Razavi” (Lighter Impact with Besan Abu-Joudeh, Aug 10)
2022
“Four myths about Iran that continue to (mis)guide U.S. foreign policy” (Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Doha, Qatar. Sept 5)
“Unknowing the Enemy: Iran and the Geopolitics of Illegibility in Washington” (American Anthropologist Vital Topics Forum., Aug 4)
“The Geopolitics of Middle East Expertise in Washington,” (Global Lunchbox, Northwestern University, Jan 28) Available as podcast:
2021
“Washington’s Problem of Iran Expertise,” (The Iran Podcast with Negar Mortazavi. May.)
2020
“Rethinking US Policy Toward Iran: A Forum” Middle East Report. May 27.
2019
“The Systemic Problem of ‘Iran Expertise’ in Washington” (Jadaliyya. September 4.)
“Jadaliyya Talks: Negar Razavi on The Systemic Problem of ‘Iran Expertise’ in Washington,” Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative. (Jadaliyya. December 9)
“Prisoner Swaps and Political Turbulence” (The Message Podcast with Reza Marashi. The Iranian.com, December 12.)
2017
“In the Loop and Off the Record: Power and the Washington Establishment” (Anthropology News, July 18.)
2015
“An Anthropologist’s Study of Washington Think Tanks and Gender Imbalance” (GenderAvenger. October 26.)
“What Washington is missing in the Iran deal” (Project for the Study of the 21st Century. July 20.)
2009
“Dear President Ahmadinejad and President Obama: Support Generation Y Diplomacy” (Huffington Post. March 12.)