David Rahimi
MA in Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Contact
- E-mail: drahimi@utexas.edu
Interests
Modern Middle Eastern History; 19th-20th Century Iranian Social, Cultural, and Economic History; History of Consumer Capitalism; Comparative Empires, Moral Discourses; Islamic Law and Religious Authority; Christian Missionaries in the Middle East
Biography
David A. Rahimi is a PhD candidate in the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin. His current research focuses on the growth of consumer capitalism and its impact on daily life in Iran during the reign of Muhammad Reza Shah (1941-1979). He is particularly interested in the how Iranian and foreign development programs and NGOs, like the Franklin Book Programs, helped promote institutional and structural changes in society and the economy.
Originally from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, David graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a B.A. in History and Political Science in 2014. Seeing no reason to leave the cornfields of central Illinois, he stayed at UIUC and received his M.A. in Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies in 2016. He joined the UT History Department in Fall 2016 under the supervision of Dr. Kamran Aghaie.