Culture and Cultural Politics Under Reza Shah presents a collection of innovative research on the interaction of culture and politics accompanying the vigorous modernization programme of the first Pahlavi ruler. Examining a broad spectrum of this multifaceted interaction it makes an important contribution to the cultural history of the 1920s and 1930s in Iran, when, under the rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi, dramatic changes took place inside Iranian society. With special reference to the practical implementation of specific reform endeavours, the various contributions critically analyze...

Critical approaches to the study of topics related to Persian literature and Iranian culture have evolved in recent decades. The essays included in this volume collectively demonstrate the most recent creative approaches to the study of the Persian language, literature, and culture, and the way these methodologies have progressed academic debate.

Topics covered include; culture, cognition, history, the social context of literary criticism, the problematics of literary modernity, and the issues of writing literary history. More specifically, authors explore the nuances of...

Addressing the question of the origins of the Zoroastrian religion, this book argues that the intransigent opposition to the cult of the da vas, the ancient Indo-Iranian gods, is the root of the development of the two central doctrines of Zoroastrianism: cosmic dualism and eschatology (fate of the soul after death and its passage to the other world).

The da va cult as it appears in the G th s, the oldest part of the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Avesta, had eschatological pretentions. The poet of the G th s condemns these as deception. The book critically...

Historiography is the study of the methodology of writing history, the development of the discipline of history, and the changing interpretations of historical events in the works of individual historians. Exploring the historiography of Persian art and architecture requires a closer look at a diverse range of sources, including chronicles, historical accounts, travelogues, and material evidence coming from archaeological excavations.

The Historiography of Persian Architecture highlights the political, cultural, and intellectual contexts that lie behind the written history...

Writing in the eighteenth century, the Persian-language litterateurs of late Mughal Delhi were aware that they could no longer take for granted the relations of Persian with Islamic imperial power, relations that had enabled Persian literary life to flourish in India since the tenth century C.E.

Persian Authorship and Canonicity in Late Mughal Delhi situates the diverse textual projects of Abd al-Q dir B dil and his students within the context of politically threatened but poetically prestigious Delhi, exploring the writers use of the Perso-Arabic and Hindavi literary...

Spanning over a period of more than five decades since its inception, Iran s nuclear programme is the most protracted civilian nuclear program in the world and one of the most politicized projects in Iran s history.

'Iran and the Nuclear Question' offers a historiographical portrait of Iran s early nuclear program under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Using declassified archival material, the book thematically chronicles the program s genesis, evolutionary trajectory, and devolution from the 1950s through to the 1970s. It also catalogues the Revolutionary Iran s early...

The True Dream is a Persian satirical drama set in Isfahan in the lead up to Iran s Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911. Although its three authors hail from the clerical class, they criticize the arrogance, corruption and secularity of the Iranian ruling dynasty and clergy, taking Isfahan as their example. The work blends fact and fiction by summoning the prominent men of the city to account for themselves on the Day of Judgment. God speaks offstage, delivering withering judgements of their behaviour. The dream of the authors is a vision of an Iran governed by law, where justice...

Critics and academics have generally dismissed the commercial productions of the late Pahlavi era, best known for their songs and melodramatic plots, as shallow, derivative entertainment . Instead, they have concentrated on the more recent internationally acclaimed art films, claiming that these constitute Iranian national' cinema, despite few Iranians having seen them. Film discourse, and even fan talk, have long attempted to marginalize these movies with the moniker filmfarsi, ironically asserting that such popular favorites were culturally inauthentic.

This book challenges...