Ashkan Rezvani Naraghi was a man who loved fiercely. He loved his growing family. He loved rock climbing. He loved his country, Iran, and its rich and vibrant history. He loved teaching and learning, first as a PhD student in urban studies at UWM, and then as a faculty member in urban planning and design at the University of Tehran.
After his death, the people whose lives he touched returned that love to create a legacy for his family.
Rezvani Naraghi was killed in December of 2020 when he and his party were caught in an avalanche while mountain climbing in the Alborz Mountains north of Tehran. Jennifer Jordan learned the news from a colleague, who sent a message to express his condolences.
“I was completely stunned by the news,” said Jordan, a UWM professor of sociology and Rezvani Naraghi’s PhD mentor. “I looked up news coverage of the avalanche. That really brought it home, how fragile we all are and how horrible this event was.”
While she grieved, Jordan was also thinking of ways to preserve Rezvani Naraghi’s legacy. By the end of the day, she knew exactly how: She would take Rezvani Naraghi’s unfinished manuscript and turn it into a published book that she could give to his family and the world.
A mentorship and friendship
Rezvani Naraghi was an intelligent, curious person. After earning his undergraduate degree in architecture in 2007 and a Master’s degree in urban design in 2010 from the University of Tehran, he applied to UWM for his doctoral studies, where he and Jordan met in one of her seminar classes.
“We realized we had curiosities about the world in common, even though my work is in a very different geographic area. But there was a kind of harmony in the ways that we investigated things,” Jordan recalled. “A lot of us were really impressed by him from the get-go. I was honored when he chose me … to be the chair of his (doctoral) committee.”
Their research areas were indeed very different: Jordan’s work has focused on urban change in Berlin, the sociology of food and memory, and most recently, beer and hops in 19th century Wisconsin, while Rezvani Naraghi’s dissertation focused on the changing landscape of the Iranian capital of Tehran. Titled “From Mosques and Coffeehouses to Squares and Cafés: the Production and Transformation of Political Public Spaces and Social Life in Modern Tehran,” the thesis revealed how the city’s geography impacted its politics and culture, and vice versa. He completed his doctoral work, graduated with his PhD in 2017, and joined the University of Tehran faculty soon after.
Jordan says that she learned a lot from her former student.
“He was an amazing person. He really was one of those people who stands out,” Jordan said. “He was a uniquely kind, energetic, compelling, principled person, someone who inspired people all around him.
“He was beginning to create a legacy and you could tell that his students there really adored him, just in the way that his colleagues and his professors at UWM also adored him,” she added.
From manuscript to book
To continue that legacy, Jordan was determined that the manuscript Rezvani Naraghi was working on would become a book. The two had corresponded frequently, so she knew that he was working on a publication based off of his doctoral dissertation.
Creating a book is no easy feat – especially when that book is not your own. Jordan started by tracking Rezvani Naraghi’s editor at Cambridge University Press, and proposing that she finish the work.
Luckily for Jordan, Rezvani Naraghi had his manuscript mostly polished, though there was still a lot to do. Jordan busied herself tracking down sources to shore up footnotes, requesting permissions for images to use in the book, choosing a photograph for the cover, and working on an index.
Along the way, Jordan discovered just how many people’s lives Rezvani Naraghi had touched.
Cambridge University Press helped Jordan connect with copyeditors to read over the book. The Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University, where Rezvani Naraghi had applied for a postdoctoral position, donated money to cover the cost of the book’s index. Rezvani Naraghi’s friends, colleagues, and mentors from Iran and around the world gave Jordan advice on imagery and formatting. Jordan’s colleagues at UWM stepped in to help as well.
“I think that speaks to Ashkan, that he had a network of people who cared about him. He was very good at creating community,” she said. “In return, that community came together to bring this book into the world.”
Rezvani Naraghi’s book, A Social History of Modern Tehran: Space, Power, and the City, was published in February, two years after his death. As political protests in Iran have dominated many national headlines in recent months, Jordan says the book is a puzzle piece that can help modern audiences understand the city’s history and that history’s impact on Iran today.
While she’s happy that Rezvani Naraghi’s research can now be shared with the world, Jordan is most happy that his children will someday be able to read their father’s work. Rezvani Naraghi had a young son and his wife was eight months pregnant with their daughter at the time of his death.
“When they’re older, they’ll be able to hear his voice again in his academic voice,” Jordan said.
If he’d had the time, she added, Rezvani Naraghi would have made so many more contributions to the world. This book represents an important part of his life’s work – a life of research, community, and love.
By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science