The Cambridge “Gang” Meets Iranian Intellectual History: Reimagining Conservatism In Context

Abstract

The Iranian humanities publication Farhang Emrooz (Today's Culture) published a series of articles on the Cambridge school of intellectual history in May 2016. The journal's colloquium, while hardly the only intervention on the Cambridge school by Iranian scholars, constitutes perhaps the most sophisticated exploration to date of the relationship between the school and Iranian intellectual history. It also excavates what Professor Ḥātam Qāderī defines as conservative currents of historiography in England and Iran. How, this article asks, is Cambridge-style history presented as a conservative approach and what might the school's Iranian reception tell us about the purpose of such a presentation? Furthermore, how do Qāderī and his peers attempt to reform Iranian historiography by diverging from other historiographical currents in Iran?