Iranian History Courses

NEW Fall 2025 in Iranian History

HIST 2608-01 – History of Iran – 3 credits
James Gustafson
MW 3:30 pm – 4:45pm

This course will cover the breadth of Iran’s social and cultural history from the Persian Empires of antiquity to the modern Islamic Republic. We will read a wide range of works from Iran’s impressive literary heritage in this class, including Zoroastrian and Islamic religious texts, mystical Persian poetry, and diplomatic, foreign policy, and business archives as we explore central themes in Iran’s history. Situated at the crossroads of Eurasia, Iranian societies have always been closely connected to broader global patterns. We will explore how diverse influences from Arab-Islamic invaders, to the Mongols, to European imperial powers have fused over the centuries to create a distinctly Iranian identity. We will also explore the influence of major social movements in Iran, including two major revolutions in the twentieth century – one of which brought to power the current Islamic Republic. This course will allow us to bring Iran’s modern politics into greater focus as communities of reformists, feminists, environmental activists, and artists are challenging Iran’s Islamic Republic on grounds of its authenticity in reflecting the diversity of Iranian society and long-held values surrounding human rights and dignity.

HIST 3614-01 – Environmental History of Iran – 3 credits
James Gustafson
M 5:00 pm – 7:00pm

In this seminar, students will master major works and debates in the emerging field of Iranian environmental history. Iran’s modern history has played out within a very unique set of environmental circumstances. Lying in the rain shadow of the Zagros Mountains, much of the Iranian Plateau has little rainfall, with farming communities suffering frequent drought alongside large numbers of mobile animal herders surviving on seasonal grasses in marginal lands. How have these environmental pressures shaped Iran’s modern history? We will use an environmental framework to explore how climate change, water scarcity, mobility, and environmental hazards like famine, disease, and earthquakes have shaped modern Iran’s history from the Little Ice Age in the 17th century to the dire environmental challenges shaping the politics of the Islamic Republic today. We will also explore the ways in which modernizing states have attempted to reshape Iran’s environment to serve human ends, from oil industrialization to railway and infrastructural development to the creation of Iran’s nuclear program. Underlying this seminar is the question of how environments are implicated in the rise of global inequality in the modern world.

Since Prof. James Gustafson is a new instructor at Georgetown University in Fall 2025, please contact them at jg2449@georgetown.edu if you have questions about the courses.