Former ISU History Professor Returns for Lecture

Date: 8/24/06
Contact: Marc Lebovitz

Former Illinois State University professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi will speak on "Privately Secular, Publicly Islamic: A Peculiarly Iranian" at 7 p.m.Wednesday, Aug. 30, in room 138 in Schroeder Hall at Illinois State. Admission is free and open to the public.

Tavakoli-Targhi left Illinois State after the 2003-2004 school year to become chair of the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Toronto-Mississauga. Since 2002 he has served as the editor of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, a Duke University Press journal, and has served on the editorial board of Iranian Studies, the Journal of the International Society for Iranian Studies.

A doctoral graduate of the University of Chicago, Tavakoli-Targhi is the author of two books: "Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Nationalist Historiography" and "Tajaddud-i Bumi" (Vernacular Modernity). Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, he was the recipient of two Outstanding Teacher awards and a Research Initiative Award at Illinois State.