Nahid Siamdoust is a Post-doctoral Associate and Lecturer at Yale University’s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies as of Fall 2017. Prior to that she taught at New York University’s Steinhardt Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, and was a research scholar at NYU’s Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies. After she obtained her doctorate in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, she taught at Oxford as an Associate of the Sub-Faculty of Near and Middle East Studies.
Her first book, Soundtrack of the Revolution: The Politics of Music in Iran, was published by Stanford University Press in 2017.
She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Art History from Barnard College, and a Master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University.
Before returning to academia and concurrently with her studies, Nahid worked as a full-time Iran and Middle East based journalist for Der Spiegel, TIME Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and Al Jazeera English TV.
Her academic research focuses on the intersection between politics, culture and media (music included) in Iran and the wider Middle East.
She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
Nahid Siamdoust is a Post-doctoral Associate and Lecturer at Yale University’s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies as of Fall 2017.
Teaching:
“The Politics of Culture in Iran” seminar at Yale University 2017/18. “Middle East Media” at NYU’s Media, Culture & Communication Department 2015-2017. At Oxford University until May 2014, Nahid taught ‘History and Politics of the Middle East’ to Oxford PPE students, ‘Modern Iran’ to undergraduates, and her self-designed course ‘The Public Sphere in the Middle East’ to master’s students.
Dissertation Abstract:
Title: ‘Iran’s Troubled Tunes: Music as Politics in the Islamic Republic’
Nahid Seyedsayamdost, St. Antony’s College (my dissertation is filed under the passport version of my last name)
Doctor of Philosophy in Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
Hilary Term 2013
In this thesis, I argue that in the absence of a free public sphere in Iran over the past three decades, music has provided an important political space where cultural producers and their audiences engage in dialogues over societal, ideational and political values. Both through the substance of their discourses and their very participation in this field, they contest the state’s ideological power. Each chapter studies in greater depth a specific time period so that, taken together, my thesis offers a chronological overview of music in the Islamic Republic. Each chapter also focuses on a specific genre and the work of one musician situated within that genre. I write about the constraints that these artists experience and explore their strategies for coping within a repressive environment. Maintaining a sense of ‘authenticity’ is important to all of the artists discussed; this became especially challenging following the 2009 presidential elections, which caused the musicians in question to take up varying positions.
On a more minor parallel track, I also trace the state’s efforts to engage in this field through its own productions, highlighting the ways in which music is an expressive reflection of the evolution of the Islamic Republic. After initially banning all music following the 1979 revolution, the state eventually bowed to the need for music but has attempted to stifle any that does not serve the regime’s interest. This has led to a popular but shallow official musical culture existing alongside a largely impotent but lively subculture. In the process of its material decisions, the state has revealed that it is bound neither by Islamic nor by republican ideals.
Following an introductory chapter, I examine the work of Iran’s foremost classical vocalist Mohammad Reza Shajarian and his use of classical Persian poetry and music to express a form of critique that has allowed for wide participation by diverse audiences. In the third chapter, I describe the state’s creation of sanctioned pop music. I study more closely the work of pop star Alireza Assar and his strategy of creating ambiguity in order to safeguard his sense of authenticity. In the fourth chapter, I trace the birth of an alternative music sphere in Khatami-era Iran by focusing on the creations of the fusion scene’s enfant terrible, Mohsen Namjoo. In the final chapter, I examine the expansion of this alternative space thanks to new communication technologies, and the emergence of a new generation of hip-hop artists through a discussion of the works of Sorush Lashkari, aka Hichkas.
