Iran in Motion: Contested Histories of the Trans-Iranian Railway

2025 Mirhady Lecture

Iran in Motion: Contested Histories of the Trans-Iranian Railway

Date & Time: October 16 @ 6PM

Location: Simon Fraser University - Vancouver Campus, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada

The Mirhady Lecture in Iranian Studies returns with a look at the Trans-Iranian Railway and how it reshaped mobility, labor, and belonging, both locally and globally. Seating is limited—register today to secure your spot!

Abstract: By using published and archival materials from Iran, England, the United States, and Denmark, this lecture examines the history of the Trans-Iranian Railway, Iran’s first national railway completed in 1938. Departing from the tendency to view the project through the exclusive lens of the Pahlavi state, I weave together hitherto unexamined experiences of a broad segment of society, including tribesmen, migrant laborers, railway workers, technocrats, tourists, pilgrims, and many others. By doing so, I will show how the Trans-Iranian Railway redirected the flows of people and goods, conjoining as well as separating multiple geographies locally, nationally, and transnationally. In other words, the project did not simply foster national integration. It redistributed mobilities, producing numerous senses of belonging along the way.

Mikiya Koyagi is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. His first book, (Stanford University Press, 2021), has won the 2023 Japan Consortium for Area Studies Book Award, the 2022 Saidi-Sirjani Book Award, and Honorable Mention from The Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies Book Award. His research has appeared in many academic journals, including The International Journal of Middle East Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Iranian Studies, Modern Asian Studies, The Journal of World History, and The Journal of Transport History. He is currently working on two book projects, one on Islamic Pan-Asianism in twentieth-century Japan and the other on the Indo-Iranian borderlands since the nineteenth century.

The Drs. Fereidoun and Katharine Mirhady Endowed Lecture in Iranian Studies is an Annual Lecture series featuring research and scholars with a particular focus on Iran and its role in the wider Middle East.

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