Books in the Iranian Studies series

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.

Focusing on the transformation of the staged dancing body, its space of performance, and spectatorial cultural ideology, this book traces the dancing body in multiple milieus of performance, including the Pahlavi era's national artistic scene and the popular café and cabaret stages, as well as the commercial cinematic screen and the post-revolutionary Islamized theatrical stage. It links the socio-political discourses on performance with the staged public dancer, in order to interrogate the formation of dominant categories of "modern," "high," and "artistic," and the subsequent "othering" of cultural realms that were discursively peripheralized from the "national" stage. Through the study of archival and ethnographic research as well as a diverse literature pertaining to music, theater, cinema, and popular culture, it combines a close reading of primary sources such as official documents, press materials, and program notes with visual analysis of filmic materials and imageries, as well as interviews with practitioners. It offers an original and informed exploration into the ways performing bodies and their public have been associated with binary notions of vice and virtue, morality and immorality, commitment and degeneration, chastity and eroticism, and veiled-ness and nakedness.

"Focusing on the Avestan and Pahlavi versions of the Sih-rozag."

This collection will explore the myriad encounters which have taken place between Iranians and Russian in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will include some discussion of diplomacy and foreign policy but a central objective of the collection will be to widen the scholarly perspective to incorporate an understanding of other types of encounter, whether political, economic, social, cultural, or intellectual, and both friendly and hostile, especially as these developed beyond the official and elite levels. In particular it will attempt to understand the complexities of the impact on Iran of the Russian presence on its northern borders: the very expansion of Tsarist empire during the nineteenth century threatening Iran¿s independence yet bringing ideas of social-democracy to its doorstep, the Soviet Union in the twentieth century similarly contradictory in its effect, sustaining radical Iranian politics while advancing its own strategic interests.

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 these topics; literature and life, poetry and nature, culture and literature, women and literature, freedom of literature, Persian language, power, and censorship, and issues related to translation and translating Persian literature in particular. In dealing with these seminal subjects, contributors acknowledge and contemplate the works of Ahmad Karimi Hakkak and other pioneering critics, analysing how these works have influenced the field of literary and cultural studies. Contributing a variety of theoretical and inter-disciplinary approaches to this field of study, this book is a valuable addition to the study of Persian poetry and prose, and to literary criticism more broadly.

Persian in Use is an elementary Persian language and culture textbook designed for first-year language students at a university level and specifically focused on teaching contemporary Persian as it is actually used. With its colorful and lively design, the textbook offers an integrative approach combining new vocabulary summarized thematically and lexically, interactive dialogues, straightforward explanations of grammatical features, engaging classroom and homework exercises, and samples of literary and popular writings.

This book examines gender and the transformation of contemporary Iran. In particular it documents the changes in women's lives, challenging the idea that the revolution put back the clock for women and showing how they have now become agents of social change rather than victims.

Based around the three key themes - historiography, politics and economy, art and architecture - this collection examines the latest research on Safavid Iran. The book, dedicated to the renowned Safavid historian Roger Savory, will supplement and re-interpret the existing literature on the subject.

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 different facets of the relationship between cultural politics, individual reformers and the everyday life of modernist Iranians.Interpreting culture in its broadest sense, this book brings together contributions from different disciplines such as literary history, social history, ethnomusicology, art history, and Middle Eastern politics. In this way, it combines for the first time the cultural history of Iran¿s modernity with the politics of the Reza Shah period.Challenging a limited understanding of authoritarian rule under Reza Shah, this book is a useful contribution to existing literature for students and scholars of Middle Eastern History, Iranian History and Iranian Culture.

Despite changes in sovereignty and in religious thought, certain aspects of Iranian culture and identity have persisted since antiquity. This book examines the history of Iran from its ancient roots to the Islamic period, focusing on pre-Islamic Persian religions and literature and their influence upon later Muslim practices and precepts in Iran.

Examines the Islamic roots of the Baha'i faith through the Qur'anic studies of the Bab (Siyyad Ali Muhammad). This book focuses on both the development of the Babi movement and the continuities and discontinuities with Shi'i Islam.

Examines Iran and its position in the contemporary world. This book contains chapters on social developments in the country including gender relations, contemporary politics, international relations, relations with the US and Israel, nuclear weapons and energy programmes, oil and the development of the economy.

Featuring contributions from scholars of Iranian studies and/or comparative literature, this collection provides a scholarly analysis of Hedayat's life and work using various methodological and conceptual approaches.

Offers an analysis of the poetry and fiction of Afghanistan. This book demonstrates that, within the trajectory of the union between modern aesthetic imagination and politics, the modernist intervention enabled many contemporary poets and writers of fiction to resist the overt politicization of the literary field, without evading politics.

Examines Iran and its position in the contemporary world. This book contains chapters on social developments in the country including gender relations, contemporary politics, international relations, relations with the US and Israel, nuclear weapons and energy programmes, oil and the development of the economy.

Iran has undergone considerable social and political upheaval since the revolution and this has been reflected in its cinema. Focusing on the practices of regulation, production and reception of films in Iran, this book explores the politics of Iranian cinema in its post-revolutionary context.

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.