Student

Sheragim Jenabzadeh Photo [SJ]

Jenabzadeh, Sheragim

Doctoral Candidate, University of Toronto

Phone Number
Email Address

sheragim.jenabzadeh@utoronto.ca

Website
Website

Sheragim Jenabzadeh is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of Toronto. He has taught undergraduate courses on global history and Iran’s Islamic Revolution at U of T. His academic research combines intellectual history and the history of youth within the changing international relations of the early twentieth century. Jenabzadeh is particularly interested in how modern states seek to construct, mold, and teach the younger members of their population with the aim of building a “model citizenry.” His research sheds light on generational conflicts and the ways in which youth contest, disrupt, and negotiate state policies. The geographical foci of his work are Iran and Germany, though he is interested in broader processes of Asian–European knowledge production. Jenabzadeh is a recipient of the German Academic Exchange Service Research Grant and the Joint Initiative in German and European Studies Research Award, and his research spans Iranian, French, and German archives. His article “‘Is Hindenburg a Sultan?’: The Trial of the Iranian Communist Journal Peykar in Weimar Germany,” was published in Iran Namag.

University of Toronto

,
Supervisor:
Jennifer Jenkins

This dissertation examines the publications and political activities of Iranian youth in Weimar and Nazi Germany, and their engagement with the modernizing efforts of the Iranian state and the political oscillations in German society. In the process, the research details the battle between states and students over the subjectivity and role of youth in the formation of national futures. Through its focus on Berlin, “City of Aspirations” demonstrates the German capital to be a hub for foreign student activism and the site where young Iranians interacted with transnational anti-imperialist movements. The dissertation connects twentieth-century Iranian intellectual thought with emerging anti-parliamentarian, communist, and fascist forces in 1920s and 1930s Berlin, and examines the contributions of Iranian students to the revolutionary atmosphere of the German capital.