Dr Allan Hassaniyan

Allan Hassaniyan is a senior lecturer in Middle East Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies (IAIS) at the University of Exeter. Hassaniyan joined the University of Exeter in 2016 as a PhD student. In 2019-2020, Hassaniyan was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Kurdish Studies at the University of Exeter, and since 2020, he has been a lecturer in Middle East studies.

Hassaniyan’s teaching activities focus on key areas such as the history of the Ottoman Empire, state and society in the Middle East, Iran (since the 16th century), and the history and politics of Kurdistan and Iraq (Ottoman era, nation-state building).

Biography:

I have obtained my BA and MA, respectively, in Arts in Public Administration and International Politics and Global Sociology from the University of Roskilde (RUC)/Denmark. I hold a PhD in Kurdish Studies from the Centre for Kurdish Studies at the University of Exeter. In my doctoral research, I examined the 20th-century cross-border Iranian-Iraqi Kurdish movements, focusing on their interactions and the effects of these interactions on the mobilisation of the Iranian Kurdish Movement. Prior to my lectureship, I completed a year of postdoctoral research at the Centre for Kurdish Studies at the University of Exeter. During this period, I researched and published studies focusing on developments such as the state’s securitisation of Iranian Kurdistan, and armed clashes and popular uprisings emerged in this region.