Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century

Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century PDF Author: Ali Gheissari
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292778910
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, Iranian intellectuals have been preoccupied by issues of political and social reform, Iran's relation with the modern West, and autocracy, or arbitrary rule. Drawing from a close reading of a broad array of primary sources, this book offers a thematic account of the Iranian intelligentsia from the Constitutional movement of 1905 to the post-1979 revolution. Ali Gheissari shows how in Iran, as in many other countries, intellectuals have been the prime mediators between the forces of tradition and modernity and have contributed significantly to the formation of the modern Iranian self image. His analysis of intellectuals' response to a number of fundamental questions, such as nationalism, identity, and the relation between Islam and modern politics, sheds new light on the factors that led to the Iranian Revolution—the twentieth century's first major departure from Western political ideals—and helps explain the complexities surrounding the reception of Western ideologies in the Middle East.

Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century

Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century PDF Author: Ali Gheissari
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292778910
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, Iranian intellectuals have been preoccupied by issues of political and social reform, Iran's relation with the modern West, and autocracy, or arbitrary rule. Drawing from a close reading of a broad array of primary sources, this book offers a thematic account of the Iranian intelligentsia from the Constitutional movement of 1905 to the post-1979 revolution. Ali Gheissari shows how in Iran, as in many other countries, intellectuals have been the prime mediators between the forces of tradition and modernity and have contributed significantly to the formation of the modern Iranian self image. His analysis of intellectuals' response to a number of fundamental questions, such as nationalism, identity, and the relation between Islam and modern politics, sheds new light on the factors that led to the Iranian Revolution—the twentieth century's first major departure from Western political ideals—and helps explain the complexities surrounding the reception of Western ideologies in the Middle East.

Iranian Intellectuals and the West

Iranian Intellectuals and the West PDF Author: Mehrzad Boroujerdi
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815604334
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Mehrzad Boroujerdi challenges the way many Americans perceive present-day Iran as well as how Iranians view the West. He examines the works of thinkers seminal in defining modern Iran (virtually unknown in the U.S.) and concludes that Islam was not the primary source of their inspiration. Their efforts forge an "authentic" national identity lay at the heart of Iranian thought. These intellectuals (both religious and secular) appropriated Islam as the vehicle through which they could most effectively challenge or accommodate modernity and Westernization. Through such a fitting appropriation, Boroujerdi asserts, could modern Iranian thinkers lay the foundation for a nativist vision of an unsullied culture, seemingly free of Western influence. Drawing on the works of Michel Foucault and Edward Said, this book explore how Iranians use their own misunderstandings about the West to form their own identity and, in return, how Westerns describe Iran in negative terms to help them reaffirm the superiority of their own culture. Boroujerdi also argues that Iranian intellectuals have been deeply indebted to Western thought, which has served as the cultural reference through which they continue to struggle with issues of identity and selfhood.

Mapping the Role of Intellectuals in Iranian Modern and Contemporary History

Mapping the Role of Intellectuals in Iranian Modern and Contemporary History PDF Author: Ramin Jahanbegloo
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793600074
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
In Mapping the Role of Intellectuals in Iranian Modern and Contemporary History, Jahanbegloo and contributors examine the role of Iranian intellectuals in the history of Iranian modernity. They trace the contributions of intellectuals in the construction of national identity and the Iranian democratic debate, analyzing how intellectuals balanced indebtedness to the West with the issue of national identity in Iran. Recognizing how intellectual elites became beholden to political powers, the contributors demonstrate the trend that intellectuals often opted for cultural dissent rather than ideological politics.

Intellectual Networks in Timurid Iran

Intellectual Networks in Timurid Iran PDF Author: İlker Evrim Binbaş
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107054249
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
Discusses the importance of informal intellectual networks and the formation of the republic of letters in Islamic history. The book focuses on the fifteenth century Timurid, Ottoman, and Mamluk empires, and traces the connections between intellectuals in these three early modern Islamic polities.

Public Intellectuals and Their Discontents

Public Intellectuals and Their Discontents PDF Author: Yadullah Shahibzadeh
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030565882
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This book addresses the ways in which the figure of the intellectuals and their relationship to the public has been theorized through the conceptualizations of bureaucracy, democracy, and communism as universal processes from the 19th century to the present. Starting with Hegel and Marx, the author looks at the rise of the figure of the universal intellectual in various forms, before turning to what is presented as a transformation of the figure of the intellectual into ‘the public intellectual’ advanced by the New Philosophies and the critical response offered by Edward Said. The study presents two comparative case studies: the Iranian Revolution and the public intellectuals in Europe, specifically in Norway, before concluding with a focus on the decay of the figure of the intellectuals and highlighting Ranciere’s critique of the intellectual/masses distinction.

Iranian Intellectuals and the West

Iranian Intellectuals and the West PDF Author: Mehrzad Boroujerdi
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815627265
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
These intellectuals (both religious and secular) appropriated Islam as the vehicle through which they could most effectively challenge or accommodate modernity and Westernization. Through such a fitting appropriation, Boroujerdi asserts, could modern Iranian thinkers lay the foundation for a nativist vision of an unsullied culture, seemingly free of Western influence.

The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism

The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism PDF Author: Reza Zia-Ebrahimi
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231541112
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
Reza Zia-Ebrahimi revisits the work of Fath?ali Akhundzadeh and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, two Qajar-era intellectuals who founded modern Iranian nationalism. In their efforts to make sense of a difficult historical situation, these thinkers advanced an appealing ideology Zia-Ebrahimi calls "dislocative nationalism," in which pre-Islamic Iran is cast as a golden age, Islam is reinterpreted as an alien religion, and Arabs become implacable others. Dislodging Iran from its empirical reality and tying it to Europe and the Aryan race, this ideology remains the most politically potent form of identity in Iran. Akhundzadeh and Kermani's nationalist reading of Iranian history has been drilled into the minds of Iranians since its adoption by the Pahlavi state in the early twentieth century. Spread through mass schooling, historical narratives, and official statements of support, their ideological perspective has come to define Iranian culture and domestic and foreign policy. Zia-Ebrahimi follows the development of dislocative nationalism through a range of cultural and historical materials, and he captures its incorporation of European ideas about Iranian history, the Aryan race, and a primordial nation. His work emphasizes the agency of Iranian intellectuals in translating European ideas for Iranian audiences, impressing Western conceptions of race onto Iranian identity.

Both Eastern and Western

Both Eastern and Western PDF Author: Afshin Matin-Asgari
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108428533
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
Studying intellectual trends in Iran in a global historical context, this new intellectual history challenges many dominant paradigms in Iranian historiography and offers a new revisionist interpretation of Iranian modernity.

Iran's Intellectual Revolution

Iran's Intellectual Revolution PDF Author: Mehran Kamrava
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521725187
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Since its revolution in 1979, Iran has been viewed as the bastion of radical Islam and a sponsor of terrorism. The focus on its volatile internal politics and its foreign relations has, according to Kamrava, distracted attention from more subtle transformations which have been taking place there in the intervening years. With the death of Ayatollah Khomeini a more relaxed political environment opened up in Iran, which encouraged intellectual and political debate between learned elites and religious reformers. What emerged from these interactions were three competing ideologies which Kamrava categorises as conservative, reformist and secular. As the book aptly demonstrates, these developments, which amount to an intellectual revolution, will have profound and far-reaching consequences for the future of the Islamic republic, its people and very probably for countries beyond its borders. This thought-provoking account of the Iranian intellectual and cultural scene will confound stereotypical views of Iran and its mullahs.

Iranian Intellectuals

Iranian Intellectuals PDF Author: Lloyd Ridgeon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317969340
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Previously published as a special issue of British Journal of Middle East Studies, this volume focuses on leading figures within Iran between 1997-2007 and their visions and works that are related to Iranian society. A cross section of opinion is investigated, including the clerical (‘Ali Khameneh’i, Muhammad Khatami and Mohsen Kadivar), the dissident (Mohsen Makhmalbaf), and the poetic (Qaysar Aminpour) and cinematic. The past decade has been a traumatic one in Iran, and the essays in this volume testify to the vibrancy of the responses from Iranian thinkers. It may be a surprise to some observers that in some senses, ‘Ali Khameneh’i may be considered a ‘liberal’ whereas Muhammad Khatami’s own credentials as an advocate of rapprochement with the West needs to be qualified. Responses to Western culture continue to remain centre-stage, and this is also nowhere more apparent than in the complex relationship between the directors of Iranian films (perhaps Iran’s most celebrated export these days) and their audiences, both Iranian and Western. Despite some viewing Iran as a pariah state, it remains firmly connected to the West and to modern technology, typified in the practice of blogging that is enjoyed by so many Iranians, which has provided a new space for expression and thinking.