More Details

Summary:

"This collection of essays is about Iranian identity in its various manifestations as it encountered the challenge of modernity. It problematizes the notion of an all-inclusive and universal "Iranian-ness" while considering the place of collective memory and sense of community. It consists of five parts organized along thematic lines. The first part, "The Legacy of Cultural Exclusion," deals with the medieval and early modern attempts to define notions of Iran and 'ajam and its supposed others--aniran, Turco-Mongols, and South Asians--through the Persian medieval epic, the Shahnamah, Persian literary histories and tazkirahs. The second part, "The Internal Frontiers," deals with the question of identity at the frontiers of Iran, including nineteenth century travel narratives in Khurasan, Azerbaijani regional re-readings of the significance of Babak Khorramdin, and Qashqa'i attitudes towards the "Iranian" state. The third part, "Empires and Encounters," examines the nature of Iranian interactions with Empires--Russian, British and Ottoman--in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with an emphasis of political and cultural "othering". The fourth part, "Identity and Iranian Political Cultures," discusses the Iranian intellectual engagement with Orientalism and the shaping of Iranian understandings of self and other in the twentieth century. Part five, "Globalized anxieties," expands on the theme of Iranian cultural anxieties--both domestically and internationally--and how the modern Iranian state (including the Islamic Republic) copes with the challenges of globalization, the treatment of its own minorities, and imagined domestic enemies. Finally, it addresses how Iranian diaspora communities negotiate their identities abroad, particularly in the United States"-- [Provided by publisher]

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Iranian identity boundaries: a historical overview / Abbas Amanat
• I. The Legacy of Cultural Exclusion and Contested Memories: 1. Iran and Aniran: the shaping of a legend / Dick Davis; 2. Redrawing the boundaries of 'Ajam in early modern Persian literary history / Sunil Sharma; 3. Iranian history in transition: recasting the symbolic identity of Babak Khorramdin / Touraj Atabaki
• II. Empires and Encounters: 4. Rebels and renegades on Ottoman-Iranian borderlands: porous frontiers and hybrid identities / Fariba Zarinebaf; 5. Facing a Rude and Barbarous Neighbor: Iranian Perceptions of Russia and the Russians from the Safavids to the Qajars / Rudi Matthee; 6. Through the Persian eye: Anglophilia and Anglophobia in modern Iranian history / Abbas Amanat; 7. British imperialism, regionalism, and nationalism in Iran, 1890-1919 / H. Lyman Stebbins
• III. Shifting and the Appropriation of the Past: 8. The academic debate on Iranian identity: nation and empire entangled / Afshin Matin-Asgari; 9. Iran and Iraq: intersocial linkages and secular nationalisms / H.E. Chehabi
• IV. Self-Fashioning and Othering: 10. Identity among the Jews of Iran / Daniel Tsadik; 11. The Confessions of Dolgoruki: the crisis of identity and the creation of a master narrative / Mina Yazdani; 12. Iranian nationalism and Zoroastrian identity: between Cyrus and Zoroaster / Monica M. Ringer.

Contributors:

Amanat, Abbas

Vejdani, Farzin

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Subjects:

National characteristics, Iranian

National characteristics, Iranian, in literature

Iranians — Ethnic identity

Political culture — Iran

Iran — Foreign relations

General Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.
Description based on print version record.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Call Numbers:

DS268 .I73 2012eb

ISBNs:

9781137013408 (electronic bk.)
1137013400 (electronic bk.)
9780230102538 [Invalid]
0230102530 [Invalid]

Other Standard Numbers:

[Unknown Type]: 40020553051

OCLC Numbers:

778698440

Other Control Numbers:

EBC868381 (source: MiAaPQ)
[Unknown Type]: ybp7471775