Babak RAHIMI - Ph.D. (European University Institute) ON LEAVE WI10 Primary Office: LIT 324 Primary Phone: (858) 534-2147 (ANS MACHINE) Email: brahimi@ucsd.edu

Assistant Professor - Iranian and Islamic Studies Shi'i Islam; Medieval and (early) modern Iranian culture and society, public sphere, civil society; Democracy and modernity Babak Rahimi, who earned his BA at UCSD, received a Ph.D from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, in October 2004. Rahimi has also studied at the University of Nottingham, where he obtained a M.A. in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, and London School of Economics and Political Science, where he was a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Anthropology, 2000-2001. Rahimi has written numerous articles on culture, religion and politics and regularly writes on contemporary Iraqi and Iranian politics. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the national endowment for the Humanities and Jean Monnet Fellowship at the European University Institute, and was a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC, where he conducted research on the institutional contribution of Shi’i political organizations in the creation of a vibrant civil society in post-Baathist Iraq. Rahimi’s current research project is on the religious cultural life of the Iranian port-city of Busher, southern Iran. Books: Between Mourning and Carnival: The Emergence of the Early Modern Iranian Public Sphere in the Safavid Period, 1592-1618, manuscript prepared for publication, 2010. "Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the Democratization of Post-Baathist Iraq, USIP Special Report, March 2007. Articles in Books: "Eating the Nahil: The Politics of the Ottoman Circumcision Ceremonies"in Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee: Leisure and Lifestyle in the EighteenthCentury, edited by Dana Sadji London: I.B. Tauris, March 2007. "The Middle-Period Islamic Axiality,”in Islam in Process: Historical and Civilizational Perspectives, edited by Johann Arnason, Armando Salvatore and George Strauth, Beilefeld: Transcript; New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, no 7, 2006. "Internet & Politics in Post-revolutionary Iran,"in Iran: Media, Culture and Society, Hamid Semati, ed. Routledge, 2007. "From Assorted to Assimilated Ethnography: Institution, Narrative and the Transformation of Ethnographic Authority in the Travel Reports of Michele Membre and Jean Chardin, 1542-1677 C.E., « in Unraveling Civilization: European Travel and Travel Writing, Hagen Schulz-Forberg, ed. Brussels: P.E.E.-Peter Lang, 2005. Articles in Journals: "The Rebound Theater State: The Politics of the Safavid Camel Sacrifice, 1598-1695 C.E."Iranian Studies 37 (3), 2004: 45-69.   "Between Chieftaincy and Knighthood: A Comparative Study of the Safavi and the Ottoman Origins."Thesis Eleven: Critical Theory and Historical Sociology 76, February 2004: 63-80. "Sacrifice, Transcendence and the Psychology of Soldier in Warfare."  Peace  Review: a Journal of Social Justice, October 2005. Co-author, Elham Gheytanchi, "Iran’s Reformists & Activists: Internet exploiters,"Middle East Policy, Spring 2008.