New Book Reexamines Collective Identity in the 1979 Iranian Revolution
Political theory professor Arash Davari has published a new book, "Insurgent Witness: Archetypes of Action in Revolutionary Iran," from Cambridge University Press.
The book reexamines the 1979 Iranian revolution to challenge how scholars typically describe the collective identity of people who make a popular revolution. Davari argues that most accounts treat revolutionary collectives as strictly partisan, dismissing anyone less than fully committed as a spectator — or worse, a coward or traitor. Looking at how millions of Iranians defied those expectations by joining popular assemblies to demand the fall of the Pahlavi regime, Davari proposes a new archetype of collective identity: partisan and spectator at once.
Drawing on a new methodological approach to previously studied archives and reading the Iranian case alongside recent global social movements, the book presents what Davari calls a distinct concept of revolutionary subjectivity — one he argues describes the terms of mass revolt in Iran while also challenging prevailing assumptions about social change and popular sovereignty in contemporary political thought.
Davari joined the department in 2022. He previously taught in the department of politics at Whitman College and has held residential fellowships at Brandeis University and Princeton University. His research spans political theory, comparative politics, and race, ethnicity and politics, with additional interests in history, rhetoric and comparative literature.
