Recasting Iranian Modernity

Recasting Iranian Modernity PDF Author: Kamran Matin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134446691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Critically deploying the idea of uneven and combined development this book provides a novel non-Eurocentric account of Iran’s experience of modernity and revolution. Recasting Iranian Modernity presents the argument that Eurocentrism can be decisively overcome through a social theory that has international relations at its ontological core. This will enable a conception of history in which there is an intrinsic international dimension to social change that prevents historical repetition. This hitherto under-theorized international dimension is, the book argues, manifest in combined patterns of development, which incorporate both foreign and native forms. It is the tension-prone and unstable nature of these hybrid developmental patterns that mark Iranian modernity, and fuelled the socio-political dynamics of the 1979 revolution and the rise of political Islam. Challenging solely comparative approaches to the Iranian Revolution that explain it away as either a deviation from, or a reaction to, modernity on the grounds of its religious form, this book will be valuable to those interested in an alternative theoretical approach to the Iranian Revolution, modern Iran and political Islam, working in the fields of International Relations, Middle East and Islamic Studies, History, Political Science, Political Sociology, Postcolonialism, and Comparative Politics.

Recasting Iranian Modernity

Recasting Iranian Modernity PDF Author: Kamran Matin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134446691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Get Book Here

Book Description
Critically deploying the idea of uneven and combined development this book provides a novel non-Eurocentric account of Iran’s experience of modernity and revolution. Recasting Iranian Modernity presents the argument that Eurocentrism can be decisively overcome through a social theory that has international relations at its ontological core. This will enable a conception of history in which there is an intrinsic international dimension to social change that prevents historical repetition. This hitherto under-theorized international dimension is, the book argues, manifest in combined patterns of development, which incorporate both foreign and native forms. It is the tension-prone and unstable nature of these hybrid developmental patterns that mark Iranian modernity, and fuelled the socio-political dynamics of the 1979 revolution and the rise of political Islam. Challenging solely comparative approaches to the Iranian Revolution that explain it away as either a deviation from, or a reaction to, modernity on the grounds of its religious form, this book will be valuable to those interested in an alternative theoretical approach to the Iranian Revolution, modern Iran and political Islam, working in the fields of International Relations, Middle East and Islamic Studies, History, Political Science, Political Sociology, Postcolonialism, and Comparative Politics.

Recasting Persian Poetry

Recasting Persian Poetry PDF Author: Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
ISBN: 9781780742496
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Using a semiotic model of poetic change, Recasting Persian Poetry presents a critical history of the evolution of Persian poetry in modern Iran. Iran's contact with Europe in the nineteenth century produced largely imaginary ideas about European culture and literature. In a series of textual manoeuvres and cultural contestations, successive generations of Iranian intellectuals sought to recast the classical tradition in a mold at once modern and relevant to their concerns. In particular, Karimi proposes a revision of the view that sets the Modernist poet Nima Yushij as the single-handed inventor of 'New Poetry'. This view, he argues, has resulted in an exaggerated sense of the aesthetic gulf between the modernist poetry of Iran and classical Persian poetry. Through a number of close readings of works by Nima's predecessors, Karimi makes visible a century-old Persian poetic tradition with Nima as its culmination.

Social Histories of Iran

Social Histories of Iran PDF Author: Stephanie Cronin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107190843
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
A social history of modern Iran 'from below' focused on subaltern groups and contextualised by developments within Middle Eastern and global history.

Iran

Iran PDF Author: Abbas Amanat
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780300248937
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A masterfully researched and compelling history of Iran from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first

The Persianate World

The Persianate World PDF Author: Nile Green
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520300920
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Persian is one of the great lingua francas of world history. Yet despite its recognition as a shared language across the Islamic world and beyond, its scope, impact, and mechanisms remain underexplored. A world historical inquiry into pre-modern cosmopolitanism, The Persianate World traces the reach and limits of Persian as a Eurasian language in a comprehensive survey of its geographical, literary, and social frontiers. From Siberia to Southeast Asia, and between London and Beijing, this book shows how Persian gained, maintained, and finally surrendered its status to imperial and vernacular competitors. Fourteen essays trace Persian’s interactions with Bengali, Chinese, Turkic, Punjabi, and other languages to identify the forces that extended “Persographia,” the domain of written Persian. Spanning the ages expansion and contraction, The Persianate World offers a critical survey of both the supports and constraints of one of history’s key languages of global exchange.

Localizing Knowledge in a Globalizing World

Localizing Knowledge in a Globalizing World PDF Author: Ali Mirsepassi
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815629634
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The essays in this collection address the current crisis in area studies, a crisis that differs from its perennial struggle with the established academic disciplines. This crisis stems from the confluence of three related circumstances: the end of the Cold War; greater economic and cultural fluidity across political borders; and contradictory intellectual trends in the academy, which include on the one hand a renaissance of universalizing thinking in the social sciences and on the other .hand, the rise of post-colonial studies and debates about modernity, postmodernity, and cultural hybridization. Although the essays differ markedly in their focus and strategies, the authors all demonstrate that local knowledge, including serious study of individual cultures and proficiency in foreign languages, which are vital to understanding rapidly changing global patterns and to countering universal claims by the social sciences. While the authors also agree that area studies must reject their enthnocentric heritages and adopt inventive new contours, they present a diversity

The Pearl of Dari

The Pearl of Dari PDF Author: Zuzanna Olszewska
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253017637
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
An ethnographic study of poetry and its place among young Afghan refugees living in urban regions of Iran. The Pearl of Dari takes us into the heart of Afghan refugee life in the Islamic Republic of Iran through a rich ethnographic portrait of the circle of poets and intellectuals who make up the “Pearl of Dari” cultural organization. Dari is the name by which the Persian language is known in Afghanistan. Afghan immigrants in Iran, refugees from the Soviet war in Afghanistan, are marginalized and restricted to menial jobs and lower-income neighborhoods. Ambitious and creative refugee youth have taken to writing poetry to tell their story as a group and to improve their prospects for a better life. At the same time, they are altering the ancient tradition of Persian love poetry by promoting greater individualism in realms such as gender and marriage. Zuzanna Olszewska offers compelling insights into the social life of poetry in an urban, Middle Eastern setting largely unknown in the West. Praise for The Pearl of Dari “The Pearl of Dari offers the reader the precious pearl of a genuine reading and learning experience. Zuzanna Olszewska combines solid scholarship with uplifting sensitivity to create a lively narrative replete with joyful discoveries of genuine personhood, agency, and humanity in the midst of multiple marginalities, an account of growing up amid layer upon layer of tension, bravely defying overwhelming odds.” —Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, University of Maryland “Olszewska’s virtuoso study explores how young progressive Afghan intellectuals use the writing and performance of poetry as a prestigious discourse, to sustain community and claim dignity in exile. Her work makes an essential new contribution in Persian literary studies, ethnolinguistics, and refugee cultural studies worldwide.” —Margaret A. Mills, Professor Emerita of Persian and Folklore, Ohio State University

The Revolutionary Guards in Iranian Politics

The Revolutionary Guards in Iranian Politics PDF Author: Bayram Sinkaya
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317525639
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has been dubbed the ‘kingmaker’ in recent studies of Iranian politics, precipitating heated debates surrounding the potential militarization of the Iranian regime and giving rise to paradoxical understandings of the IRGC; whether as a military institution entering politics, or a political institution with a military history. Revolutionary Guards in Iranian Politics offers a way out of this paradox by showing that the IRGC is not a recently politicized institution, but has instead been highly politicized since its inception. It identifies the ways in which the IRGC relates to national political dynamics, examines the factors contributing to this relationship, and its implications on Iranian politics from the revolution up to the present day. The book examines the three decades following the revolution, uncovering the reasons behind the rise of the Revolutionary Guards and tracking the organization’s evolving relationship with politics. Establishing a theoretical framework from revolution and civil-military relations theories, this book provides new perspectives on the relationship between the IRGC and Iranian politics. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East Studies and Iranian Studies, in particular Iranian Politics.

Iranian Music and Popular Entertainment

Iranian Music and Popular Entertainment PDF Author: GJ Breyley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317336798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
The word motreb finds its roots in the Arabic verb taraba, meaning ‘to make happy.’ Originally denoting all musicians in Iran, motrebi came to be associated, pejoratively, with the cheerful vulgarity of the lowbrow entertainer. In Iranian Music and Popular Entertainment, GJ Breyley and Sasan Fatemi examine the historically overlooked motrebi milieu, with its marginalized characters, from luti to gardan koloft and mashti, as well as the tenacity of motreb who continued their careers against all odds. They then turn to losanjelesi, the most pervasive form of Iranian popular music that developed as motrebi declined, and related musical forms in Iran and its diasporic popular cultural centre, Los Angeles. For the first time in English, the book makes available musical transcriptions, analysis and lyrics that illustrate the complexities of this history. As it presents the findings of the authors’ years of ethnographic work with the history’s protagonists, from senior motreb to pop-rock stars, the book reveals parallels between the decline of motrebi and the rise of ‘modernity.’ In the twentieth century, the fate of Tehran’s motrebi music was shaped by the social and urban polarization that ensued from the modern market economy, and losanjelesi would be similarly affected by transnational relations, revolution, war and migration. Through its detailed and informed examination of Iranian popular music, this study reveals much about the values and anxieties of Iranian society, and is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Iranian society and history.

The Political Economy of Iran

The Political Economy of Iran PDF Author: Farhad Gohardani
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030106381
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
This study entails a theoretical reading of the Iranian modern history and follows an interdisciplinary agenda at the intersection of philosophy, psychoanalysis, economics, and politics and intends to offer a novel framework for the analysis of socio-economic development in Iran in the modern era. A brief review of Iranian modern history from the Constitutional Revolution to the Oil Nationalization Movement, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the recent Reformist and Green Movements demonstrates that Iranian people travelled full circle. This historical experience of socio-economic development revolving around the bitter question of “Why are we backward?” and its manifestation in perpetual socio-political instability and violence is the subject matter of this study. Michel Foucault’s conceived relation between the production of truth and production of wealth captures the essence of hypothesis offered in this study. Foucault (1980: 93–94) maintains that “In the last analysis, we must produce truth as we must produce wealth; indeed we must produce truth in order to produce wealth in the first place.” Based on a hybrid methodology combining hermeneutics of understanding and hermeneutics of suspicion, this monograph proposes that the failure to produce wealth has had particular roots in the failure in the production of truth and trust. At the heart of the proposed theoretical model is the following formula: the Iranian subject’s confused preference structure culminates in the formation of unstable coalitions which in turn leads to institutional failure, creating a chaotic social order and a turbulent history as experienced by the Iranian nation in the modern era. As such, the society oscillates between the chaotic states of socio-political anarchy emanating from irreconcilable differences between and within social assemblages and their affiliated hybrid forms of regimes of truth in the springs of freedom and repressive states of order in the winters of discontent. Each time, after the experience of chaos, the order is restored based on the emergence of a final arbiter (Iranian leviathan) as the evolved coping strategy for achieving conflict resolution. This highly volatile truth cycle produces the experience of socio-economic backwardness and violence. The explanatory power of the theoretical framework offered in the study exploring the relation between the production of truth, trust, and wealth is demonstrated via providing historical examples from strong events of Iranian modern history. The significant policy implications of the model are explored. This monograph will appeal to researchers, scholars, graduate students, policy makers and anyone interested in the Middle Eastern politics, Iran, development studies and political economy.