Iranian Nationality and the Persian Language
Iranian Nationality and the Persian Language

Author: Shāhrukh Miskūb

Publisher:

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this insightful study of Iranian cultural history and national identity, Shahrokh Meskoob, one of Iran's leading intellectuals, reviews the roles of three social classes, the courtiers and bureaucratic officials (ahl-e divan), the religious scholars (ulama), and the Muslim Gnostics (Sufi poets and writers), in the development and refinement of the Persian language during the past one thousand years and gives the reader a fresh perspective on Iranian cultural heritage and the struggle to forge a distinct national identity. Dr. Ali Banuazizi's foreword and interview with the author sets the stage for a fuller appreciation of this invaluable and wide-ranging contribution to Iranian intellectual history.

Making History in Iran
Making History in Iran

Author: Farzin Vejdani

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2014-11-05

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 080479281X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Iranian history was long told through a variety of stories and legend, tribal lore and genealogies, and tales of the prophets. But in the late nineteenth century, new institutions emerged to produce and circulate a coherent history that fundamentally reshaped these fragmented narratives and dynastic storylines. Farzin Vejdani investigates this transformation to show how cultural institutions and a growing public-sphere affected history-writing, and how in turn this writing defined Iranian nationalism. Interactions between the state and a cross-section of Iranian society—scholars, schoolteachers, students, intellectuals, feminists, and poets—were crucial in shaping a new understanding of nation and history. This enlightening book draws on previously unexamined primary sources—including histories, school curricula, pedagogical materials, periodicals, and memoirs—to demonstrate how the social locations of historians writ broadly influenced their interpretations of the past. The relative autonomy of these historians had a direct bearing on whether history upheld the status quo or became an instrument for radical change, and the writing of history became central to debates on social and political reform, the role of women in society, and the criteria for citizenship and nationality. Ultimately, this book traces how contending visions of Iranian history were increasingly unified as a centralized Iranian state emerged in the early twentieth century.

Frontier Fictions
Frontier Fictions

Author: Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-08-07

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1400865077

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Frontier Fictions, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet looks at the efforts of Iranians to defend, if not expand, their borders in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and explores how their conceptions of national geography influenced cultural and political change. The "frontier fictions," or the ways in which the Iranians viewed their often fluctuating borders and the conflicts surrounding them, played a dominant role in defining the nation. On these borderlands, new ideas of citizenship and nationality were unleashed, refining older ideas of ethnicity. Kashani-Sabet maintains that land-based conceptions of countries existed before the advent of the modern nation-state. Her focus on geography enables her to explore and document fully a wide range of aspects of modern citizenship in Iran, including love of homeland, the hegemony of the Persian language, and widespread interest in archaeology, travel, and map-making. While many historians have focused on the concept of the "imagined community" in their explanations of the rise of nationalism, Kashani-Sabet is able to complement this perspective with a very tangible explanation of what connects people to a specific place. Her approach is intended to enrich our understanding not only of Iranian nationalism, but also of nationalism everywhere.

My Shadow Is My Skin
My Shadow Is My Skin

Author: Katherine Whitney

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2020-03-16

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 147732027X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Iranian revolution of 1979 launched a vast, global diaspora, with many Iranians establishing new lives in the United States. In the four decades since, the diaspora has expanded to include not only those who emigrated immediately after the revolution but also their American-born children, more recent immigrants, and people who married into Iranian families, all of whom carry their own stories of trauma, triumph, adversity, and belonging that reflect varied and nuanced perspectives on what it means to be Iranian or Iranian American. The essays in My Shadow Is My Skin are these stories. This collection brings together thirty-two authors, both established and emerging, whose writing captures the diversity of diasporic experiences. Reflecting on the Iranian American experience over the past forty years and shedding new light on themes of identity, duality, and alienation in twenty-first-century America, the authors present personal narratives of immigration, sexuality, marginalization, marriage, and religion that offer an antidote to the news media’s often superficial portrayals of Iran and the people who have a connection to it. My Shadow Is My Skin pulls back the curtain on a community that rarely gets to tell its own story.

Iranian Culture
Iranian Culture

Author: Nasrin Rahimieh

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-08-27

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 1317429354

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Throughout modern Iranian history, culture has served as a means of imposing unity and cohesion onto society. The Pahlavi monarchs used it to project an image of Iran as an ancient civilisation, re-emerging as an equal to Western nations, while the revolutionaries deployed it to remake the country into an Islamic nation. Just as Iranian culture has been continually re-interpreted, the representations and avocations of Iranian identity vary amongst Iranians across the world. Iranian Culture: Representation and Identity demonstrates these fissures and the incompatibilities that refuse to be written out of national culture, analysing works of literature, popular music, graphic art and film, as well as oral narratives. Using works produced before and after the 1979 revolution, created both inside and outside of Iran, this study reveals neglected complexities and contradictions in the field of Iranian cultural production. It considers how contested claims to culture, whether they originated in Iran or the Iranian diaspora, shape our understanding of this culture and what spaces they create for new articulations of it, and in doing so offers an important re-examination of our collective concept of culture. This book would be an excellent resource for students and scholars of Middle East Studies and Iranian Studies, specifically Iranian culture including film and contemporary literature and the Iranian diaspora.

Persian Mirrors
Persian Mirrors

Author: Elaine Sciolino

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9780743217798

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Sciolino goes behind the headlines for an intriguing, in-depth look at Iran's complex people and culture. photos. 1 map.

Iranian National Identity and the Persian Language
Iranian National Identity and the Persian Language

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2015-10-20

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9781933823812

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this insightful study of Iranian cultural history and national identity, the late Shahrokh Meskoob, one of Iran's leading intellectuals, reviewed the roles of three social classes, the courtiers and bureaucratic officials (ahl-e divan), the religious scholars (ulama), and the Muslim Gnostics (Sufi poets and writers), in the development and refinement of the Persian language during the past 1,000 years and gives the reader a fresh perspective on Iranian cultural heritage and the struggle to forge a distinct national identity. Dr. Ali Banuazizi's foreword and interview with the author sets the stage for a fuller appreciation of this invaluable and wide-ranging contribution to Iranian intellectual history.

The Iran Primer
The Iran Primer

Author: Robin B. Wright

Publisher: US Institute of Peace Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1601270844

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A comprehensive but concise overview of Iran's politics, economy, military, foreign policy, and nuclear program. The volume chronicles U.S.-Iran relations under six American presidents and probes five options for dealing with Iran. Organized thematically, this book provides top-level briefings by 50 top experts on Iran (both Iranian and Western authors) and is a practical and accessible "go-to" resource for practitioners, policymakers, academics, and students, as well as a fascinating wealth of information for anyone interested in understanding Iran's pivotal role in world politics.

The Iranian Languages
The Iranian Languages

Author: Gernot Windfuhr

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-13

Total Pages: 962

ISBN-13: 113579703X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Iranian languages form the major eastern branch of the Indo-European group of languages, itself part of the larger Indo-Iranian family. Estimated to have between 150 and 200 million native speakers, the Iranian languages constitute one of the world’s major language families. This comprehensive volume offers a detailed overview of the principle languages which make up this group: Old Iranian, Middle Iranian, and New Iranian. The Iranian Languages is divided into fifteen chapters. The introductory chapters by the editor present a general overview and a detailed discussion of the linguistic typology of Iranian. The individual chapters which follow are written by leading experts in the field. These provide the reader with concise, non-technical descriptions of a range of Iranian languages. Each chapter follows the same pattern and sequence of topics, taking the reader through the significant features not only of phonology and morphology but also of syntax; from phrase level to complex sentences and pragmatics. Ample examples on all levels are provided with detailed annotation for the non-specialist reader. In addition, each chapter covers lexis, sociolinguistic and typological issues, and concludes with annotated sample texts. This unique resource is the ideal companion for undergraduate and postgraduate students of linguistics and language. It will also be of interest to researchers or anyone with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistics anthropology and language development. Gernot Windfuhr is Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of Michigan; he has published widely on Persian and Iranian languages and linguistics and related languages, as well as on other aspects of Iranian culture including Persian literature and Pre-Islamic Iranian religions.