The competition of good and evil is good; the monopoly of good is evil.
Life and Thought
Milad Dokhanchi (born 15 November 1984 in Zahedan) is an Iranian cultural studies researcher, writer, cultural critic and media producer. He received his PhD in cultural studies from Queen’s University in Canada and is known for his book Post-Islamism and his media and educational work on the relation between religion, politics and culture.
Milad Dokhanchi, whose full name is Mohammad Mehdi Dokhanchi, was born on 15 November 1984 in Zahedan. His father, Mohammad Reza Dokhanchi, was originally from Qom and a retired official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He completed his higher education in cultural studies at Queen’s University in Canada; his doctoral dissertation, titled “Post-Islamism Redefined: A Genealogy of Political Islam in Iran,” is devoted to redefining post-Islamism and tracing the genealogy of political Islam in Iran.
In addition to academic research, Dokhanchi has worked as a writer, film critic, documentary filmmaker and television producer. He is one of the founders of the Jivegi School of the Humanities and is active in the fields of humanities education, cultural criticism and intellectual dialogue. Among his published works are the book Post-Islamism: A Reconsideration of the Relation between Religion and Politics in Iran (Arma Publishing, 2020) and The Account of a Resignation (a conversation with Mohammad Sarafraz).
The main axis of his thought is a critical rereading of the relation between religion, politics and identity in contemporary Iran. He has advanced the concept of “post-Islamism” as a framework for understanding the transformations of political Islam and the new possibilities for linking religion and modernity, and in his debates and writings he addresses the critique of structures of governance, the rethinking of the legacy of religious intellectualism (especially that of Shariati) and the analysis of Iran’s cultural and social issues.