Dr. Arash Ghajarjazi

Post-doctorate Fellow

Personal Profile:

Dr. Arash Ghajarjazi is a post-doctorate fellow for the ERC Advanced Grant Beyond Sharia: The Role of Sufism in Shaping Islam. He works across Media Studies, Memory Studies, Religious Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies, using methodological tools from cultural analysis, media theory, and philology. His research targets lost, neglected, or silent records, such as photographic archives, radio and television repositories, digitised newspapers and periodicals, and telecommunication archives. His monograph, Irrationalities in Islam and Media in Nineteenth-Century Iran (2022) offers the first media archaeological perspective on the Iranian context. His second monograph is Remembering Umar Khayyam: Episodes of Unbelief in the Reception Histories of Persian Quatrains, which is the outcome of his work in Beyond Sharia project, and will be published by Gruyter in March 2025. The book offers new insights into the interplay of religion, media, literature, and collective memory in Iran and challenges the still dominant (neo)Orientalist approach to Middle Eastern modern history.

Video: “Beyond Sharia: Arash Ghajarjazi on Secularity in the Persian Cultural Area” (2024)

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