Welcome to Keyvan's Substack

Hi all, this is Keyvan. You may know me as a Persian breakfast enthusiast from Twitter. Or you might not—even better. In a previous life I was an academic and primarily wrote about identity, personhood, and the nature of social practice. I left academia after my PhD to pursue a more financially practicable career, but have since continued to write about Iran, identity, and culture. Long story short, this is my Substack. I want to take a moment to briefly introduce the board themes of what I will be doing on this platform.

Most of my previous writing has revolved around Iran and American foreign policy toward Iran. I was born and grew up in Iran, and am always traversing the weird cultural and political dualism of living in the US whilst my family still lives in Iran. Naturally, this Substack will serve as a forum to continue writing on Iran-related themes, but it will also be a place for me to explore themes outside the politics of Iran and the Middle East. As I currently envision its structure and perimeters, my writings on this platform will be categorized into a couple of distinct (but at times overlapping) categories.

First, I will continue to write about Iran, but this will not be limited to present-day Iranian politics. I intend to use this venue to write about my own identity as an Iranian and a Muslim, and the experiences of Muslim Americans more broadly. Some of this will be political, insofar as Muslim identities are inherently politicized and political, but not necessarily so.

Second, I want to utilize this space to return to writing about social and political theory,—topics that animated so much of my academic research for the last decade. This is partially an attempt to post less on Twitter and write more in long-form, in addition to an experiment in making myself venture outside the borders of writing exclusively about American foreign policy.      

Unfortunately all of this will cost money. I intend to publish some things for free, but I want to offer the best representation of my work, which does require material incentive and support. You can encourage this endeavour for the small price of $5 per month, but if you can’t or are reluctant to, that’s fine too. You could probably get a pretty decent cup of coffee for $5, and I certainly won’t begrudge you for doing so. You can also support this endeavor more generously through gift subscriptions.

In any case, I hope you support this work and stick around. Hit the subscribe button below.