Narges Bajoghli

Narges Bajoghli is Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies. She is an award-winning anthropologist, writer, and professor.

Trained as a political anthropologist, media anthropologist, and documentary filmmaker, Bajoghli's academic research is at the intersections of media and power in Iran and the United States. Her first project focused on regime cultural producers in Iran, and was based on ethnographic research with Basij, Ansar-e Hezbollah, and Revolutionary Guard media producers. The resulting book, Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic (Stanford University Press 2019) was awarded the 2020 Margaret Mead Award (American Anthropological Association & Society for Applied Anthropology); the 2020 Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title (American Library Association); and the 2021 Silver Medal in Independent Publisher Book Awards for Current Events (Political/Economic, Foreign Affairs).

Bajoghli's research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the National Science Foundation (awarded/declined), The Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the American Institute of Iranian Studies, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, and Brown University. Bajoghli received her PhD in socio-cultural anthropology from New York University, where her dissertation was awarded the Dean's Outstanding Dissertation Award in the Social Sciences. She was also trained as a documentary filmmaker in NYU's Culture and Media Program and at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She is the director of The Skin That Burns, a documentary film about survivors of chemical war in Iran, distributed by Film Media Group. The film has screened at festivals and university campuses in The Hague, Hiroshima, Jaipur, Tehran, and throughout the U.S. (New York, New Orleans, New Jersey, Chicago, and Irvine). She has also directed oral history projects on survivors of chemical weapons (archived at the Tehran Peace Museum).

Bajoghli is currently working on three research projects. At Johns Hopkins University, Bajoghli teaches classes on media, contemporary Iranian politics and society, and ethnographic research methods to masters and PhD students. She is the recipient of the 2022 Excellence in Teaching Award at Johns Hopkins University, SAIS. Bajoghli is the co-director of the Rethinking Iran Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, SAIS, which includes public events and research projects on contemporary Iranian society.

In addition to her academic writing, Bajoghli has written for such publications as The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and Jacobin. She has appeared as a guest commentator on Iranian politics on CNN, DemocracyNow!, NPR, BBC WorldService, BBC NewsHour, and PBS NewsHour as well as in Spanish on radio programs across Latin America. Outside of academia, Bajoghli was a community organizer, co-founder of a non-profit organization, and creator of educational programs for middle school, high school, and college students rooted in social justice pedagogy and organizing. Bajoghli has worked with cultural and educational collectives in Iran and Latin America (Cuba, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica), and organized cultural programming and exchanges in the United States, Iran, and Cuba for two decades.