Professor dr Touraj Atabaki

Professor of History of the Middle East and Central Asia
Leiden University

Studied theoretical physics (BSc, MSc) and history at the National University of Iran and University of London. Worked at Utrecht University, where he acquired MA and PhD. Holds the endowed chair of “Social History of the Middle East and Central Asia” at the Department of History of the University of Amsterdam. Senior research fellow at the International Institute of Social History.

◊ Award & Distinctions
• Senior University Teaching Qualification, Utrecht University, 2005.
• Senior Qualification University Research, Utrecht University, 2005.
• Visiting Professor, European University, Summer Program, Budapest, Hungary, Summer 2005.
• Iranian Heritage Foundation Fellow, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, Britain, 2003-2004.
• Visiting Professor, European University, Summer Program, Budapest, Hungary, Summer 2004.
• Visiting Senior Research Fellow, the Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, University of
• Oxford, Britain, Fall 1998.
• Visiting Senior Fellow, Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, June1996.
• Visiting Senior Fellow, Institute of Oriental Studies, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, Baku, Azerbaijan, Spring 1995.
• Visiting Senior Fellow, Institute of Oriental Studies, Tajikistan Academy of Sciences, Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Spring1995.

◊ Employment
Leiden University, Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Middle East, Associate Professor, 2006-present.
University of Amsterdam, Department of History, Endowed Chair and Professor of “Social History of the Middle East and Central Asia”, 2001-present.
Inaugural Lecture: Beyond Essentialism. Who Write Whose Past in the Middle East and Central Asia? University of Amsterdam, December 2002.
International Institute of Social History, Department of the Middle East and Central Asia, Chair, 1995-present.
Utrecht University, Department of Eastern Languages and Cultures, Associate Professor, 1991-2006.
Utrecht University, Department of Eastern Languages and Cultures, Associate Professor, 1987-1991.

◊ Honorary Positions
• Member Editorial Board of Iranian Studies, Journal of the International Society for Iranian Studies, 2003 – Present.
• Member of the Academic Committee of the International Institute of Asian Studies, 2003-present.
• Director of European Council of the International Institute of Persian Speaking Societies, 2000-2003.
• Member Council of the Society for Iranian Studies, 2001-2003.
• Member Editorial Board of the Review of International Affairs, 2000 – Present.
• President European Society for Central Asian Studies, 1998-2000.
• Secretary European Society for Central Asian Studies, 1991-1998.
• Member Editorial Board, Newsletter of the International Institute for Asian Studies, 2001-2003.
• Member Editorial Board, International Journal of Azerbaijani Studies, 1998- present.
• Member of Editorial Board, Journal of Iran and the Caucasus, 1997- present.
• Member the Executive Committee of the International Convention of Asia Scholars, 1996-2002.
• Consultant for BBC World Service on the current affairs of Iran, Central Asia and the Caucasus, 1988-present.
• Consultant for Radio France International on the current affairs of Iran, Central Asia and the Caucasus, 1999-present.
• Consultant for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on the current affairs of Iran, Central Asia and the Caucasus, 2000- present.
• International observer, Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), monitoring the parliamentary election in Kazakhstan, 1994.
• International observer (OSCE), monitoring the parliamentary election in Kyrgyzstan, 1995.
• International observer (OSCE), monitoring the parliamentary election in Azerbaijan, 1995.
• International observer (OSCE), monitoring the parliamentary election in Albania, 1996.
• International observer (OSCE), monitoring the president election in Ukraine, 1999.
• International supervisor (OSCE), supervising the municipal election in Kosovo, 2000.
International observer (OSCE), monitoring the presidential election in Armenia, 2003.

◊ Membership
• Member of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), 1989 - present
• Member of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), 1989 - present
• Member of the Societas Iranologica Europaea (SIE), 1989 - present
• Member of the International Society for Iranian Studies (SIS), 1987 - present
• Member of the European Society for Central Asian Studies (ESCAS), 1985 - present

◊ Books
• Incommodious Hosts, Invidious Guests. Everyday life of Iranian Migrant Workers in the Stalinist Soviet Union (Forthcoming).
• The Young Moments in the History of the South (Forthcoming).
• Historiography and Political Culture in Twentieth-Century Iran, Editor (London, I.B.Tauris, publication scheduled for 2007).
• The State and the Subaltern. Society and Politics in Turkey and Iran, Editor (London, I.B. Tauris, publication scheduled for April 2007).
• Iran and the First World War: A Battleground of the Great Powers, Editor (London: I.B.Tauris, 2006).
• Central Asia and the Caucasus: Transnationalism and Diaspora, co-Editor [Sanjyot Mehendale] (London: Routledge, 2005).
• Men of Order: Authoritarian Modernisation Under Atatürk and Reza Shah, co-Editor [Erik Jan Zürcher] (London: I.B Tauris, 2004).
• Beyond Essentialism. Who writes whose Past in the Middle East and central Asia? (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2003).
• Post-Soviet Central Asia, co-Editor [John O’Kane] (London: I.B.Tauris, 1998).
• Azarbayjan dar Iran-e Mo‘aser, [Azerbaijan in Contemporary Iran] (Tehran: Tus, 1997).
• Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and the Struggle for Power in Iran, [Revised Edition of Azerbaijan, Ethnicity and Autonomy in the Twentieth-Century Iran] (London: I.B.Tauris, 2000).
• Centraal Azië, co-Author [Joris Versteeg] (Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen-Novib-NCOS, 1994).
• Azerbaijan, Ethnicity and Autonomy in the Twentieth-Century Iran (London, IB Tauris, 1993).
• Ayat-e ‘Eshq, Tajiki Contemporary Poetry, [Selected and edited work of the Tajik poet Golrukhksar] (Frankfurt: Horizonte Verlag, 1992).
• Kurdistan in Search of Ethnic Identity, Co-Editor [Margreet Dorlijn] (Utrecht: Houtsma Foundation Publication, 1990).
• Etymologisch Woordenboek, Van Veen, P.A.F.; Van der Sijs, N., Editor (Amsterdam: Van Dale, 1989). [Part on Avestan and Persian].

◊ Bibliographies
• The Baku Documents. Union Catalogue of Persian, Azebaijani, Ottoman Turkish, and Arabic Serials and Newspapers in the Libraries of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Co-Editor [Solmaz Rustamova-Towhidi] (London: I.B.Tauris, 1995).
• The Caucasus Directories. Union Catalogue of Persian, Azebaijani, Ottoman Turkish, and Arabic Serials and Newspapers in the Libraries of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Georgia, [co-Editors: Solmaz Rustmova-Towhidi, Grigol Beradze, Georg Sanikidze] (Tehran: Resanehha, 2006).
◊Book Chapters
• “Kendini Yeniden Kurmak, Ötekini Reddetmek: Panturkism ve Iran Milliyetçiligi”, in: Erik Jan Zürcher (ed), Türkiye’de Etnik Çatisma (Istanbul: Iletisim, 2005).
• “Enlightening the People: The Practice of Modernity in Central Asia and its Trans-Caspian Dependencies”, in Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek and Julia Katschnig (eds.), Central Asia on Display (Vienna: Lit Verlag, 2004).
• “Başkasını Reddederek kendini Yenilemek: Pan-Türkçülük ve Iran Milliyetçiliği”, in: Willem van Schendel & Erik Jan Zürcher(eds), Orta Asya ve İslam Dünyasında Kilimlik Politikaları (İstanbul, İletişim, 2004).
• “Incommodious Hosts, Invidious Guests. The life and Time of Iranian Revolutionaries in the Soviet Union: (1921-1939)”in Stephanie Cronin, Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left (London: Routledge-Curzon, 2004).
• “Recasting and Recording Identities in the Caucasus”, in, G S. Asatrian, (ed), Iran and the Caucasus (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2003).
• “Recasting Oneself, Rejecting the Others: Pan-Turkism and Iranian Nationalism” in Erik Jan Zűrcher and W. van Schendel (eds), Identity Politics in Central Asia and Muslim Word (London: I.B.Tauris, 2001).
• “Dialogue; a Literary Form in Persian Nineteenth/Twentieth-Centuries Political Dis¬course”, in B. G. Fragner, et al. (ed.), Proceedings of the Second European Conference of Iranian Studies (Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1995).
• “A Study in the History of Bukharan Modernism, the Journey of Ahmad Donish to St. Petersburg”, in I. Baldauf, and M. Friederich (eds), Bamberger Zentralasienstudien, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1994).
• “The Early Labour Movement in Khorasan”, in M. van Damme and H. Boeschoten (eds.), Utrecht Papers on Central Asia (Utrecht: Utrecht University, Turkological Series, 1987).

◊ Articles
• “Ethnic Diversity and Territorial Integrity of Iran: Domestic Harmony and Regional Challenges”, Iranian Studies, 38:1 (March 2005).
• “On Subaltern Historiography”, Ketab-e Mah – Tarikh va Joghrafia (Book of the Month, On History an Geography) (2004).
• “Disgruntled Guests: Iranian Subaltern on the Margins of the Tsarist Empire,” International Review of Social History, 48:3 (2003).
• “Azerbaijan and Iranian Nationalism”, Goft-o-gu, Journal on Culture and Society, 33 (May 2001).
• “From Comrade Rouge to the Enemy of the People”, Goft-o-gu, Journal on Culture and Society, 31 (2001).
• “Dialogue; a Literary Form in Persian Nineteenth/Twentieth-Centuries Political Dis¬course”, Goft-o-gu, Journal on Culture and Society, 23 (1999).
• “Narrating the Nation: A Study on Reshaping Identity in Azerbaijan”, Journal of Azerbaijani Studies, 2:2 (1999).
• “The Policies of the Khorasani Communists in the Early 1920s”, Goft-o-gu, journal on Culture and Society, 11 (1996).
• “The Myth of an Ultimatum, A Study on the US-Soviet Relations in the Context of the Azerbaijan Crisis”, Goft-o-gu, Journal on Culture and Society, 10 (1995).
• “Nationality, Ethnicity and Autonomy in the Contemporary Iran”, Goft-o-gu, Journal on Culture and Society, 3 (1994).
• “The Iranian Dialogue”, Iranshenasi, Journal of Iranian Studies, 4:4 (1993).
• “Prostitution in Iran”, Iranshenasi, Journal of Iranian Studies, 4:2 (1992).
• “L'Organisation Syndicale Ouvrière en Iran”, Sou'al, 8 (1987).
◊ Editor
• Guest editor with Marcel van der Linden, A special issue on Social History of Iran, International Review of Social History, 48: 3, 2003.
• Guest editor, A special Issue on the Iranian Left Movement, Goft-o-gu, Journal on Culture and Society, 31 (2001)

◊ Encyclopedia Entries
• “Tudeh Party of Iran”, in Encyclopedia Iranica, edited by Ehsan Yarshater (forthcoming).
• “Azerbaijan”, in Encyclopedia of Islam (supplement) (forthcoming).
• “Mirza Shafi‘ Wadih Tabrizi”, in Encyclopedia of Islam (supplement) (Leiden: Brill, 2004).
• “Mirza Shafi‘ Mazandarani”, in Encyclopedia of Islam (supplement) (Leiden: Brill, 2004).
• “Russification and Sovietization of Central Asia”, in Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, edited by David and Karen Christensen (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003).
• “Khanate of Khiva”, Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2003).
• “Pan-Turanism”, Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2003).

Bron: atabaki.net