This PhD position is part of the NWO VIDI-funded project “Iran’s Secular Shift”, which investigates Iran’s evolving secular landscape using a mixed-methods approach. This subproject specifically focuses on visual culture and digital media to explore representations of non-religion, atheism, and calls for separating mosque and state in Iran. The research contributes to a broader understanding of how secularity is articulated in an authoritarian, theocratic context.
Your job In your research you will employ qualitative methods. Quantitative methods may also (but do not have to) be part of the research, depending on your skills and interest in learning to work with new methods. Primary methods to be used are:
- visual and discourse analysis of secular and/or non-religious imagery in transnational Iranian digital culture;
- network analysis of how non-religious themes circulate in online spaces;
- digital ethnography and interviews with Iranian social media users, artists, and activists (in Iran and in diaspora);
- comparative studies with non-religious visual cultures in other authoritarian contexts.
The research will explore key questions such as:
- How do Iranians visually express non-religion, atheism, and secularism?
- What aesthetic and symbolic forms define these expressions?
- How do digital platforms shape narratives of secular identity and political dissent, both within Iran and in the diaspora?
Your tasks and responsibilities include the following:
- conducting independent research within the broader mixed-methods project framework;
- analysing visual and digital media materials related to non-religion, atheism, and secularism in Iran and its diaspora;
- engaging with theoretical and methodological debates on secularism and visual culture;
- collaborating with artists and researchers in disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, religious studies, political philosophy, gender studies, media studies, and digital humanities;
- presenting your findings at academic conferences and through public engagement activities, and contributing to peer-reviewed publications.
This PhD position offers a unique opportunity to contribute to a pioneering study on non-religion, atheism, and secularism in Iran and its transnational connections. The project is supervised by an interdisciplinary team comprising Professor Asghar Seyed-Gohrab (supervisor, Utrecht University), Dr Ladan Rahbari (co-supervisor, University of Amsterdam), and Dr Pooyan Tamimi Arab (co-supervisor and PI of the project, Utrecht University).