This study is an attempt to understand the politics of international film festivals and how it translates into local forms of colonialism. Theroretical review of this study focuses around the politics of festivals particularly through Iranian Cinema in the international frame. Inclusionary/exclusionary mechanisms of film festivals, the notion of national geographic effect and how they formed the canonization of Iranian cinema will be discussed. The thesis has also analyzed an Iranian film Kandahar as a case study with the notion of Orientalism to demonstrate how colonizing gaze organized in festival circuit has been internalized by a national filmmaker.

This dissertation is aimed at analyzing the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps&rsquo / (IRGC) relationship to politics, which evolved into different forms through the three decades of the revolution. Eventually the IRGC has become one of the most influential organizations with respect to Iranian politics. This situation has raised the following question / why and how has the IRGC become such an influential political actor in post-revolutionary Iranian politics? Considering different forms of the IRGC-politics relationship, this study also questioned the reasons that lay behind the shifts in that relationship. In order to answer these questions, this dissertation examined the relationship between the Revolutionary Guards and the political leadership in post-revolutionary Iran. It maintained that there are four variables that determined the IRGC-politics relationship, which are ideological position of the political leadership, power of the political leadership, ideological outlook of the Revolutionary Guards and corporateness of the Revolutionary Guards. In order to analyze forms of the IRGC-politics relationship and to explain shifts between these forms, it traced these variables through the post-revolutionary history of Iran, which was divided into four periods (i.e. transition, radical, thermidorian, and neo-radical periods) because of the changing political and revolutionary dynamics. It concluded that because corporateness of the IRGC reached into a high level whereas power of the political leadership was seriously weakened in the last two periods, the IRGC&rsquo / s clout significantly increased in Iranian politics. Congruence or incongruence between ideological values of the political leadership and of the IRGC, and their commitment to pursue those values determined the confrontationist or cooperative nature of the IRGC&rsquo / s relations with the political leadership.

Iranian film has in recent decades comprised an increasingly important and influential cinema. The Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 paved the way for freedom of artistic and literary expression, communicating a new generation of unheard voices in Iranian society. More specifically Iranian cinema has progressed in maintaining an identity that reflects both a contemporary nation and auteuristic cinematics. Abbas Kiarostami is one of the more recent and leading film directors rewarded with critical and filmmaking acclaim out of Iran, producing contemporary snapshots of society and culture. His filmmaking methods and ideals are very much reflective of the style of post Second World War Italian Neorealism. In context and filmmaking principles Kiarostami adapts the conventions of Neorealism in exploring contemporary Iranian socio-cultural problems in a similar manner. This project aims to explore the relationship between the style and context of his filmmaking in terms of mise-en-scène, themes and socio-cultural concerns. It shows how Kiarostami creates a distinctive form of Neorealist filmmaking to get at the ‘truths’ of contemporary Iranian life in a particular way. In doing so an emergent strand of a modern-Neorealism becomes apparent.

In the Path of the Prophet: Medieval and Early Modern Narratives of the Life of Zarathustra in Islamic Iran and Western India is a historical study of the discursive practices by which Zoroastrians struggled to define their communal identity through constructions of the central figure of their religion. I argue that Zoroastrians adopted cosmopolitan religious vocabularies from the Islamicate and Sanskritic literary traditions for a world in which they were no longer a dominant political force. Contrary to much scholarship, which characterizes medieval Zoroastrian thought as stagnant, I contend that literary production in this period reveals extraordinary intellectual engagement among Zoroastrians endeavoring to make meaning of their ancient religious traditions in a rapidly changing world. The essays of my dissertation focus on four moments in Zoroastrian intellectual history. I begin with an analysis of the thirteenth century Persian Zarātushtnāma (The Book of Zarathustra), examining interactions between Zoroastrian theology and prophetology and contemporary Islamic thought, focusing on the role that miracles played in medieval Zoroastrian conceptions of prophethood. In my next essay, I explore questions of identity, orthodoxy and heterodoxy by investigating a group of Zoroastrian mystics who migrated from Safavid Persia to Mughal India around the seventeenth century. Influenced by the Illuminationist school of Islamic philosophy, they left behind a body of texts which blur religious boundaries. In my third essay, I examine the earliest literary compositions in the Gujarati language about the life of Zarathustra, employing theoretical discussions of literary cosmopolitanism and vernacularization to trace how Zoroastrian stories were reimagined by Indian Zoroastrians (Parsis) to fit Indo-Persian and Sanskritic discursive conventions. Finally, I look at the ways in which Zoroastrian prophetology was transformed through the experience of colonial modernity, focusing especially on the role of the printing press and the creation of a literate public sphere. I argue that the formation of a Parsi colonial consciousness was an experience of loss and recovery, in which traditional Persianate forms of knowledge were replaced by newly introduced sciences of philology, ethnology, and archaeology, fundamentally reshaping the Parsi conception of their religion and religious boundaries. / Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

This thesis seeks to examine the Kurdish novel, The Flower of Shoran (1998) by Iranian Kurdish author, ‘Atā Nahāyi in the context of Kurdish identity search and nationalism and struggle to build a nation state. Considering that the setting of the novel is between the two World Wars which is arguably the most critical phase of Kurdish nationalism, the present study tries to give a brief overview of the historical events that shaped and oriented Kurdish nationalism. Subsequently, Nahāyi’s perspective on the question of Kurdish identity and nationalism in Iran which are the underlying themes of the novel is discussed. Also a detailed summary has been provided along with the translation of the first two chapters of the novel to illustrate how a fairly successful Kurdish novel such as The Flower of Shoran has dealt with the Kurdish question of identity and nationalism in the context of Kurds' struggle for autonomy and recognition as a distinct nation. / text

The present thesis consists of an edition of an Iranian literary work whose theme is a journey to the Other World, namely the Ardāy-Vīrāf Nāma. The version of this work which is here edited and commented on is a prose version in the Zoroastrian Persian language. A discussion about Iranian conceptions of the Other World is also an integrated part of the thesis. The text of the Ardāy-Vīrāf Nāma is edited employing a text critical method by using six manuscripts. The oldest manuscript, which has been used as the base manuscript for editing the text, was written in 896 A.Y. (Yazdgirdī)/1527 A.D. The edited text is also translated into English, and followed by a Commentary on names, unusual words and Zoroastrian terms used in the text. Other Iranian documents about journeys to the Other World are studied in this thesis as well, and all are compared to the Ardāy-Vīrāf Nāma. The Zoroastrian Persian version of this work is also compared to its Parsig version. The differences between the Zoroastrian Persian and the Parsig versions indicate that they have their background in two different world views. To prove this theory, some significant elements in the Zoroastrian Persian version, which demonstrate that this is a pre-Zoroastrian epic narrative, have been compared to some elements in the Parsig version that show that this is a religious Zoroastrian account. Possible reasons for the change in Ardāy-Vīrāf Nāma from a pre-Zoroastrian epic narrative into a Zoroastrian-religious one are also suggested. A king named Davānūs is one of the Ardāy-Vīrāf Nāma personages. In an appendix, the historical personality of Davānūs is discussed with reference to Arabic, Persian and Greek historiography.

This is a study of hudud - Islamic 'fixed penalties' - as they appear in Iranian law and courts. It first presents the codified laws and underlying elements from Twelver Shi‘i law (as interpreted by the Iranian legal community) governing the penalties of stoning for adultery, amputation of four fingers for theft, and execution for sodomy and certain variants of fornication (illicit carnal congress between unmarried males and females). It subsequently observes how these laws and concepts are used in practice by analysing previously unavailable court documents pertaining to theft, sodomy, fornication and adultery trials. It thereby seeks to discover opportunities for avoiding these hadd (singular of hudud) penalties, which are termed ‘irreversible’ because they change the condemned irrevocably by killing or maiming them. The material collected suggests several patterns characterising the application of hudud in Iran. The law itself provides so many opportunities for lenience that in most cases, irreversible penalties could theoretically be avoided. However, the law is often so vague that judges have enormous discretion about how to interpret and apply it. This is exacerbated by the fact that the codified law is underlain by Shi‘i texts which jurists, judges and lawyers acknowledge as the true and authoritative source of law. The law’s vagueness necessitates recourse to these texts, but different texts and interpretations thereof can be used in court, leading to unpredictable sentencing. Furthermore, in the cases analysed it was commonplace for laws to be contravened outright. Socioeconomic forces also affected, or were revealed by, some of the cases. As well as many opportunities for lenience, the law contains fundamental obstacles to it, many of which are difficult to abrogate in an ‘Islamic Republic’ because they originate from authoritative Shi‘i texts. Some jurists suggest ways to overcome even these, one being Khomeini’s doctrine whereby state interests can override Islamic orthodoxy to protect the Muslim community and hence Islam itself. The project serves as a ‘handbook’ of codified Iranian hadd law in light of its underlying Shi‘i concepts as understood by Iranian legal specialists. Through a systematic analysis of hadd cases, it shows how these ideas are applied in practice, and could also have practical applicability in the field of human rights.

Thesis (J.S.D.)--University of Illinois, 1956. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-329) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2008. / "Graduate Program in History." Includes bibliographical references (p. 230-245).

Thesis (J.S.D.)--University of Illinois, 1956. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-329) and index.