Join us for the fifth Zahedi Family Fellow lecture by Ehssan Hanif. A light lunch will be served, RSVP is required.

Following a brief period of oil nationalization, the 1953 coup that overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh marked a critical turning point in Iran’s political and economic trajectory. The coup paved the way for the 1954 Consortium Agreement—a pivotal settlement between the Iranian state and the global oil cartel known as the “Seven Sisters,” of which five were American corporations. Framed as part of a broader strategy for Iran’s modernization, the consortium agreement and its accompanying financial arrangements positioned oil revenues as the engine of national development. This framework not only redefined the management of Iran’s subsoil wealth but also cemented a decisive turn in the country’s foreign policy, shifting the axis of influence from British imperial control to expanding American oversight.

This lecture, beginning with the 1920s, traces the power dynamics over Iran’s subsoil that culminated in the 1954 consortium and the accompanying geopolitical shift. It interrogates how oil functioned not merely as an economic resource but as a fulcrum of political sovereignty and international leverage. In particular, this talk examines how British and Russian colonial entanglements fueled Iran’s geopolitical anxieties, ultimately rendering American intervention not only acceptable but, at moments, desirable to segments of the Iranian authorities. By foregrounding oil as a central actor in this drama, this talk aims to shed light on how subterranean resources reshaped Iran’s developmental imaginaries and geopolitical alignments —particularly its pivot toward the United States—even before the onset of the Cold War.

Ehssan Hanif is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Architecture and Urban Development at Cornell University. His research, tentatively titled Petro-domesticity and Modernity in Iran (1929–1963), explores the intricate history of oil and architectural modernity within Iranian domestic spaces, mapping their manifestations from Abadan to Tehran. In his work, he examines how the interplay between oil workers’ movements, international interests in Iran’s subsoil resources, and nationalist discourses reshaped housing projects across Iranian cities. Prior to his time at Cornell, he worked as an independent researcher and translator in Iran, translating several seminal texts into Persian, including Architecture and Modernity (H. Heynen), Benjamin for Architects (B. Elliot), The Story of Post-modernism (C. Jenks), and Aesthetic Theory: Essential Texts (M.F. Gage). Ehssan’s latest scholarly contribution, “Cinemas on Fire: Walter Benjamin’s Spielraum and the 1979 Revolution in Iran,” is forthcoming in Middle East Critique.

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