Naveed Mansoori

Position
Associate Research Scholar
Office Phone
Office
2-S-13 Green Hall
Bio/Description

Bio

Naveed Mansoori is a political theorist interested in histories and theories of media and mediation, anti- and de-colonial history and theory, and critical theory. He received his PhD in political science from the University of California-Los Angeles. His current book project, The End of Prophecy: Mediations of Political Myth in Contemporary Iran, offers a rethinking of the public sphere with focus on the role media has played in social movements before and after the 1979 Revolution in Iran. While public spheres are typically thought of as places for rational deliberation, Mansoori excavates the archive of the Revolution and its afterlives to argue that “mediascapes” are sites where social actors participate in the production and circulation of political myths.

In a recent article in Contemporary Political Theory, “A Mirror for the Crowds: The Mediation of Political Leadership in Post-revolutionary Iran,” Mansoori focuses on the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution. Shortly before International Women’s Day 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini declared that women had to don the Islamic veil in public spaces. The article shows how the once non-partisan newspaper Ayandegan became an unwitting source of guidance for abandoned revolutionaries. By covering the crowds, Ayandegan served as a party organ in the absence of political parties. Though focused on Iran, the article makes a broader claim about the role of media in “leaderless movements.”

Mansoori is co-editor of Jadaliyya’s Iran page online. He has published work in Theory & Event, Philosophy & Global Affairs, the Globalizing Political Theory handbook, Society & Space, Comparative Islamic Studies, and ReOrient: A Journal of Critical Muslim Studies. He has forthcoming contributions to L’esprit and Liberation: An Ali Shari’ati Readerand is co-editing a handbook on the lived experience of ideology for “The Routledge Handbooks on Political Ideologies, Practices and Interpretations” book series.

From 2017–2019, he held the Elahé Omidyar Mir Djalali Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies. Before coming to Princeton University, Mansoori was an ACLS Emerging Voices Fellow in the Religion, Race, & Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia.

More information on his research and publications can be found on his website