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Subject Area: Iran
Chaqueri, Cosroe1992 0-7734-9228-3 264 pages
This study focuses on Iranian tales as a medium for the transmission of mode of thought, behavior, and social values in the process of socialization, and in the social reproduction of the superstructure. Comparisons with Turkey, China and Arab countries isolate a complex of motifs that occur only in Iranian tales, and then treat the relation of these pertinent motifs with Iran's socio-historical reality. The historical development of Chess, one of the oldest games popular among Iranians, and its impact on their socialization process is also discussed. The inquiry concludes by comparing the historical process of social rise and the social ambitions of the Iranian political elite on the basis of the games and tales they are brought up with.
Towfighi, Parviz S.
2009 0-7734-4779-2 292 pages
This book examines the relationship between Iranian nationalism and Islam, especially Shi ‘ism as the adopted official religion of the country by the founder of the Safavid Dynasty in 1501 A.D. The study covers selected periods in fourteen centuries of Iranian history with greatest emphasis on the last two centuries where secular Western reformist ideas overlap with progressive religious thinking.
Derayeh, Minoo
2006 0-7734-5813-1 260 pages
The changes that affected Iranian women’s lives after the coming of Islam in the seventh century were similar to the changes that occurred in their lives after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In both cases these changes were largely wrought by men.
Iranian women have been actively involved and have participated fully in diverse religious, political, and social contexts since the eighteenth century, but frequently without recognition. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the belief that education was a pillar of freedom began to gain popularity among Iranian women. Their efforts to secure an equal place with men in the nation’s educational institutions received support from a number of women writers and poets in the form of protests and petitions. The twentieth century, however, witnessed the destruction of most of Iranian women’s hopes and quests. Different Iranian governments enacted a series of important laws and regulations touching on “women’s issues” without allowing any input from women.
In the last two decades, under the Islamic Republic, laws and regulations affecting the status of Iranian women came in the form of different religious decrees that were justified by the argument that they all complied with the Quran and the shariah. Iranian women have refused to abandon their quests for an equal status. This is their story.
Sadri, Farshad
2010 0-7734-3716-9 236 pages
The author demonstrates how Falsafah(which linguistically refers to a group of commentaries by Muslim scholars associated with their readings of the Corpus Aristotelicum) in Iran has been always closely linked with religion. It also shows that after the introduction of Islamic falsafah (and the onset of the Corpus Aristotelicum in Baghdad in 899 AD), the blending of the new natural theology and the vibrant Iranian culture gave birth to a new making of intellectual sway which soon made Iran the center of falsafah (and sciences) in the Medieval world.
Godazgar, Hossein
2008 0-7734-5231-1 292 pages
This book attempts to make sociological sense of the implications of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 for education in Iran in terms of ideological influences. Adapting Max Weber’s interpretive approach, it focuses on changing patterns of shared meanings and social relations in schools in one area of North West Iran.
Razavi, Reza
2023 1-4955-1157-X 648 pages
"The relationship between state and society in Iran has evolved in the last hundred years and the state's grip on power has increased. ...State repression and public resistance have developed hand-in-hand and have formed a major part of Iran's contemporary history. Iran has experienced reform, revolution and military coups in the last century. ...The aim [of this book is] to concentrate on the certain aspects of Iranian history that have contributed to the state's repressive policy and public resistance." -Reza Razavi (Preface)
Ansari, Maboud
2013 0-7734-4081-X 236 pages
Iranian immigration to the United States is a relatively new political phenomenon and constitutes one of the highest status foreign-born groups in the United States. More Iranians live in the U.S., today than in any other country in the world other than Iran. It began fifty-five years ago with the study abroad of young Iranians. They came to the United States in the 1950’s often as temporary residents (students and interns) but eventually changed their status to permanent residents. However, it was the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the establishment of the Islamic Republic, and the eight years of Iran-Iraq war that forced many of the best educated and most wealthy into exile in the United States and many other countries. Never before in Iran’s long history, have so many people involuntarily had to leave their country. In so far as the revolution ousted the Pahlavi dynasty, displaced the ruling class directly associated with it, it drastically changed the pattern and the nature of Iranian emigration to the United States. Consequently, the Iranian community in the United States has since undergone important structural changes in its character, its social composition, economic power, and notably, its political orientation and participation.
Movassat, Johanna Domela
2005 0-7734-6075-6 308 pages
The large vault at Taq-i Bustan, Kermanshah, Iran, was built by the last great Sasanian king, Khusro II (590-628). It was a victory monument, a politicals statement of the power of the Sasanian king, and an expression of the three roles of a proper king: the head of the state religion, a great warrior, and a great hunter. It functioned as a summer retreat within a paradeisos for the Sasanian court and a reviewing stand for courtly and religious festivals including the great hunts of spring (No Ruz) and fall (Mihragan). As an example of late Sasanian royal art it shows the influence of ancient Mesopotamian, Hellenistic, Seleucid, Iranian (Achaemenid through Sasanian), Roman, Byzantine, and Eastern Turkish elements on the royal art of the late Sasanian period. These elements would provide much of the basis for Islamic art.
Khorrami, Mohammad Mehdi
2002 0-7734-6935-4 184 pages
This book describes and analyzes contemporary Iranian fiction through the technical components of Persian literary tradition. Texts examined include: Tuba va Ma’na-ye Shab; Ghazaleh Alizadeh’s “Dadresi”; Ayenehha-Ye Dardar; and the short stories of Shahriyar Mandanipur.
Mafie, Farhad
2003 0-7734-6840-4 276 pages
Nader Naderpour, celebrated Iranian poet, political scholar, and literary critic, was a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Because of his outspoken criticism of the Islamic Government in Iran, he lived a life of self-imposed exile, teaching Persian literature and Iranian political history at UCLA and UCI for many years. This volume includes a biography, personal recollections of associates, including his wife, comments of other poets on Naderpours works, a selection of his poems, his most famous political-historical articles, and his commentaries on modern Iranian prose and poetry. With photographs.
Estakhr, Mehdi
2012 0-7734-2608-6 908 pages
Europe's fascination with Zoroaster began in the classical period. Celebrated as the embodiment of wisdom and morality, and enjoying the prestige of an unfathomable antiquity, a personality cult, with validating authority, was created around him. This led several western schools of thought to claim him as their precursor and first master; foisting their own ideas under him to give them validity. When Zoroaster was metamorphed into an astrologer, his authority was also sought by those circles for which astrological occurences provided proof for claims they made, such as certain Neo-Platonists and Christians. Zoroaster's popularity culminated in the Renaissance when he was accredited with the so-called 'Zoroaster's Oracles,' - writings which provided the Humanist Platonists with the underpinningto construct their own passages to God independently of the divine revelation. In the post-Reformation religious controversies, Zoroaster was made to vouch for the truth of Christianity against the tide of freethinkers and atheists, and against Christian antagonists in the interdenominational conflict. The Enlightenment saw the Philosophes and their like minds enlist Zoroaster's authority to combat revelation and to advance the cause of 'Natural Religion'. Zoroaster' validating auhority continued to be exploited even after the arrival and the translation of the Avesta in France which shattered the image the West had made of him. Zoroaster's image as witness in the West provides a prime example of the use of the reconstructed imagined 'Other' for self-validation, self-criticism, as well as belaboring the 'Other'.
Writer, Rashna
2013 0-7734-4492-0 532 pages
The conquest of Sasanian Iran by the Arabs, newly galvanized by Islam, brought to a close Zoroastrian Iran which would henceforth become an integral part of the Islamic world. This book examines the transformation of the country and its impact on the diminished Zoroastrian community; and investigates Zoroastrian-Muslim relations in Iran, from the early post-conquest era to the present time.
Razavi, Reza
2011 0-7734-1439-8 388 pages
An examination of Iran’s post-revolutionary political system. In particular, the study analyzes contemporary Iranian history and the composition of competing political factions. The tension between the central authority of the Supreme Leader and these factions continues to be a major source of instability in the country.