Professor
B.A. Political Science, University of Tehran, 1974
M.A. International Relations, American University, 1980
Ph.D. Sociology, American University, 1985
Ali Mirsepassi is professor of Middle Eastern studies and sociology at the Gallatin School and director of Iranian Studies Initiative at New York University. In addition, he is associated faculty at the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies department and affiliated faculty at the Sociology department in the College of Arts of Science. From 2002 to 2007, he held several administrative posts in the Gallatin School Deans' Office, most notably serving as the School's interim dean for two years. He was a Carnegie Scholar (2007-2009). Professor Mirsepassi taught at Hampshire College, Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His teaching interests include social theories of modernity, comparative and historical sociology, sociology of religion, Middle Eastern societies and cultures, and Islam and social change. He is the author of
Political Islam, Iran and Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 2011),
Democracy in Modern Iran (New York University Press, 2010),
Intellectual Discourses and Politics of Modernization: Negotiating Modernity in Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2000), and
Truth or Democracy (published in Iran); coeditor of
Localizing Knowledge in a Globalizing World (Syracuse University Press, 2002); and guest editor of "Beyond the Boundaries of the Old Geographies: Natives, Citizens, Exiles, and Cosmopolitans" in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (CSSAAME), spring 2005. He is currently completing a book entitled
Tradition, Cosmopolitanism, and Democracy . Professor Mirsepassi has received several awards and grants, including the Iranian "Best Researcher of the Year" (2001), a teaching award from Tehran University, and grants from the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
