Dr. Teresa Davis is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Latin American History in the History Department. She completed graduate school at Princeton University, where she was a colleague of historian Xiyue Wang. Wang was imprisoned in Iran in 2016 while conducting archival research on nineteenth-century nomadic populations of contemporary Central Asia, Russia, Iran, western China and Mongolia. Davis wrote a piece in The Washington Post arguing for increased attention to his research and imprisonment. Read an excerpt below along with the full piece, “Iran has imprisoned a historian for three years. Here’s why his research matters.”

“We should all work tirelessly for Wang’s release. There is no zero-sum equation between fighting to free an innocent researcher in an Iranian prison and advocating for productive diplomatic relations with Iran. Indeed, if diplomacy and sanity are to succeed, we will need to protect the work of researchers such as Wang, who systematically challenge the idea of a foundational clash between East and West, Islam and Christianity, or “backward” and “modern” forms of political organization. To support Wang is to cast our lot in favor of historical nuance and humanity against the hard-liners — both abroad and in our midst.”