Congratulations to the Department of History’s PhD dissertation and MA thesis prize winners for 2025-2026, Morad Roohi (PhD, 2026) and Rebecca Hartley (MA, 2025)!
These prizes are awarded for the outstanding doctoral dissertation and MA thesis defended between June 1, 2025, and May 31, 2026.
Dr. Morad Roohi’s dissertation, “Architecture of Domination: Imperialism, Infrastructure and the Territorialization of an Iranian Nation-State (1860-1928),” provides a detailed account of the extremely varied environments and cultures of the regions that currently make up the Islamic Republic of Iran. The dissertation resists the often teleological (and nationalistic) projection of cultural uniformity and political destiny that has characterized much mainstream approaches to late-nineteenth – early-twentieth century Iran. Dr. Roohi’s scholarship challenges conventional understandings of Iran’s political history with respect to both imperialism and nation building, refuting a widely held assumption that European intervention in the region posed an existential threat to Persian territorial sovereignty and the idea that modern infrastructure and transportation simply served as a blunt instrument for the exploitation of local resources. In fact, he shows, the same “tenacles” of imperialist intervention also served the builders of Iran’s territorial state. Finally, without losing sight of human agency, Dr. Roohi’s study also inscribes “actants” into the historical record by analyzing the colonizing force of infrastructure itself in the making of a modern state. This dissertation makes a major contribution to Middle Eastern historiography generally and to Iranian historiography specifically where cultural approaches to modernization have long prevailed over attention to geography, ecology, economy, and the built environment.
Rebecca Hartley’s MA thesis, “‘Between Illusion and Reality’: Representations of the Past in Canadian Streetscape Exhibits,” examines two streetscapes – the half-sized façades inspired by historical buildings and staged with historical artifacts – at the Royal British Columbia Museum and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Hartley argues that these exhibits reflected and shaped visitors’ understandings of Canada’s past. By entrenching history within settler commemorative practices that echoed popular Canadian historical narratives, these museums appealed to public desires for immersive entertainment. This research ultimately explores how the consumption of history in two Canadian streetscape exhibits from 1972 to 1989 reinforced different but complementary narratives of nation. This thesis is innovative in form and concept, an impressive and significant contribution to studies of public history.
On behalf of the Department of History, congratulations again to Morad and Rebecca!
