"Tatsächlich steht das offiziell verkündete Wahlergebnis nicht im Widerspruch zu einer im Mai landesweit durchgeführten Umfrage eines US-Forschungsinstituts. Dieses sah Ahmadinedschad klar vor seinem größten Konkurrenten Mussavi. Vermeintliche Quellen aus dem iranischen Innenministerium dagegen sprachen nach der Wahl von einem Erdrutschsieg Mussavis. Indizien für einen Betrug gibt es viele..."

In this study I draw on ethnographic research conducted from May 2009 to March 2010 to examine how diasporic and second-generation Iranians in Atlanta produce culture through their dinner parties. It is through these parties, I suggest, that representations of what it means to be Iranian and live in the United States are collectively negotiated as well as handed down to younger generations.

This thesis analyzes Shirin Neshat’s Women of Allah photographs by exploring key socio-political events that have shaped Iranian history since the reign of Cyrus the Great, ca. 600 B.C. Since Neshat’s photographs have been largely intended for a Western audience, it is important to explore the concept of colonialism that has created East/West polarities and so greatly influenced our modern era. This paper intends to demonstrate that Neshat’s images perpetuate Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, which allocates the Oriental to an inferior position vis-à-vis his Occidental counterpart. For a Western audience, Neshat’s consistent use of the Muslim veil, illegible Persian calligraphy, and guns symbolizes Islam’s violence and degeneracy; additionally, these elements position the Muslim woman as a subaltern entity in an archaic society. As a result, the Iranian Muslim woman remains restricted by her social, cultural, and religious praxis, as well as by Neshat’s formal and contextual depiction of her.

Inledning: Bröstmjölk är den bästa näringskällan för spädbarn. Alla friska mödrar rekommenderas att exklusivt amma sina barn upp till sex månaders ålder samt därefter fortsätta amma och ge annat födotillägg upp till två års ålder eller längre. Flertalet faktorer kan dock påverka beslutet om att välja att amma eller inte. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att undersökta iranska invandrarkvinnors uppfattningar och bruk angående amning och bröstmjölksersättning. Metod: En kvalitativ studie med strategiskt urval genomfördes där tio iranska invandrarkvinnor intervjuades. Intervjuerna bestod av tolv frågor och spelades in och sedan transkriberades. Innehållsanalys användes. Resultat: Resultaten delades in i fem kategorier: ”Hälso- sjukvårdskontakt i Sverige och i Iran”, ”Typ av föda som givits barnet”, ”Information och råd angående amning och bröstmjölksersättning”, ”Faktorer som påverkar valet att amma” samt ”Slutgiltig uppfattning angående valet att amma”. Resultaten påvisade bl.a. att samtliga kvinnor hade ammat och introducerat bröstmjölksersättning samt att faktorer som påverkat valet att amma var positiva och negativa. Slutsats: Alla deltagarna i studien hade ammat eftersom de ansåg bröstmjölk var det bästa för barnet. Kvinnorna uppgav att de i efterhand är nöjda med beslutet som togs angående amning och kunde se det hela som en positiv erfarenhet. / Introduction: Breast-milk is the best source of nutrition for infants. Healthy mothers are recommended to exclusively breastfeed their children until they are six months old and then combine with solid food up to two years of age or longer. Many factors can affect the decision to breastfeed. Aim: The aim was to investigate about perception and practice concerning breastfeeding and infant formula among Iranian immigrant women. Method: A qualitative study with strategic selection. Ten Iranian immigrant women were interviewed. The interviews consisted of twelve questions that were recorded and transcribed. Content analysis was used. Result: The result was divided into five categories: “Health-care contact in Sweden and in Iran”, “Type of food given to the baby”, “Information and advice about breastfeeding and infant formula”, “Factors affecting the decision to breastfeed” and “Conclusive perception about breastfeeding”. The result showed for example that all of the women had breastfed and introduced infant formula, and factors that affected there decision to breastfeed was positive and negative. Conclusion: All women had breastfed. They thought that breast-milk is the best for their children and stated satisfaction with their decisions about breastfeeding. They could see it as a good experience.

This thesis examines Iranian-Kurdish filmmaker, Bahman Ghobadi’s authorial strategies and cinematic aesthetics through the theoretical and methodological lens of hybridity. According to Homi Bhabha, hybridity can be understood as a “third space,” in which cultural meanings resist binary either/or logic, and are instead negotiated through a logic that is neither one, nor the other. Thus, Bhabha’s concept of hybridity as a “third space” provides a fruitful framework to analyze Ghobadi’s authorship and cinematic style. By analyzing Ghobadi’s neo-realist treatment of Kurdistan’s cultural and physical landscape and hybrid cinematic aesthetics in his first two features, A Time for Drunken Horses (2000) and Turtles Can Fly (2004), this research calls attention to intercultural processes that generate cultural meaning through indexical and material as opposed to symbolic registers. In addition, this thesis applies Hamid Naficy’s concept of “shifters” to examine how Ghobadi’s hybrid authorial strategies and narrative reflexivity garners international audiences in his two latest features, Half Moon (2006) and No One Knows about Persian Cats (2009). This project also examines how Ghobadi’s use of a digital camera and employment of digital cinematic techniques to capture Iran’s underground rock music culture in No One Knows about Persian Cats, testifies to the authenticity of this cultural space while simultaneously structuring the film as a global vehicle for these Iranian musicians’ performances. Ultimately, Ghobadi’s hybrid authorial strategies and cinematic aesthetics function as a means to enunciate and globally circulate diverse Kurdish and Iranian cultural identities. In doing so, this thesis illuminates hybrid modes of cultural production and hybrid cultural subjectivities that have emerged in the contemporary globalized landscape. / text

This dissertation looks at the dialectical relationship between Persian literary works representing or alluding to the pre-Islamic legacy and the political conditions of Iran. Through discursive analyses, it shows that these works in new political conditions change the orientation and main thrust of their message, and use or allude to the same pre-Islamic legacy for promoting modernization, criticizing official policies or showing resistance to the ruling establishment. The main thrust of their arguments also subtly indicates the country's future intellectual and political orientation.A transition from the traditional to modern use of antiquity took place during the second half of the nineteenth century, mainly as a result of increased interaction with Europe. Until the fall of the Qajarids, the Persian intellectuals and writers such as Akhundzadah, Dihkhuda used pre-Islamic legacy to support their arguments for modernization. Later, the despotic Pahlavi rulers (1925-79) sought to modernize the country but stifled the democratic evolution of polity and employed the pre-Islamic Persian heritage to strengthen monarchy. Hence, the Persian fiction writers such as Hidayat, Shahani, Danishwar dissociated themselves from official nationalism and used pre-Islamic heritage in non-glorifying ways to criticize the official policies.After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the new rulers reversed the Pahlavi official policy of glorifying the pre-Islamic Iran, and projected Shi'i Islam as the central element of Iranian identity. In their efforts to create Islamic subjects, they deprived people many of their civil and political rights. In the new political environment, the fiction writers such as Danishwar, Sadiqi and Arian showed remarkable interest in using pre-Islamic mythological and historical references, themes and events in their writings. Such literary production functioned as a literary resistance to the policies of the Islamist rulers.To substantiate the findings about the use of pre-Islamic legacy in modern Persian literature, the dissertation also examined the representation of Iranian antiquity in Persian films. The dissertation showed that the political representation of pre-Islamic heritage in Persian literature finds a parallel, though less pronounced, in Persian films too.

This thesis considers the transformation of Iranian-Israeli ties following the 1979 Iranian Revolution from a Western-allied relationship to a covert, scandalous relationship, specifically in the context of the Iran-Iraq War. I also look at the Iranian and Israeli narratives and compare the religious, historical, ideological and psycho-political underpinnings that reveal significant similarities between these two superficially diametrically opposed states, and ultimately shaped the complex and misunderstood relationship between the two countries. / text

This dissertation describes the nature of what has been called kalām-e jadīd (new theology) in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It argues that there are currently two kinds of “new theologies” in practice. One new theology that is more widely adhered to is an extension of classical theology and stays true to traditional precepts, while the second is postmodern in nature and breaks with tradition completely. The first strand of kalām-e jadīd, referred to as “theology of selectivity,” is represented here by the works of Mohsen Kadivar, the person who epitomizes the intellectual but tradition-bound wave of post-revolutionary theological thought in Iran. The second strand of kalām-e jadīd, referred to as “postmodern theology,” is presented via the works of Abdolkarim Soroush, the most representative thinker of this type of kalām. In making this distinction, this dissertation therefore delineates the different forms of post-revolutionary reformist theology in Iran and presents Soroush’s work in terms of the greater postmodern discourse that feeds his work. The interest and importance placed on Soroush’s work also speaks volumes about the receptiveness of Iranian reformist intellectual communities towards postmodern thought and the possibility of placing these communities within what has come to be known as the postmodern condition. Thus, in essence this project can be seen as a comparative work that also points towards the ideological distance between these two modernizing trends in current Iranian Islamic thought. / text

This study will examine the impact of the hotly-debated sanctions against Iran from the perspective of the civilians who live in a country other than their sanctioned homeland, yet keep ties with their country of origin, specifically Iranians immigrants in Toronto and Halifax. Using transnationalism theory, this study shows that human consequences of the sanctions are not limited to the Iranians who live inside Iran but reach out to immigrants who live across borders. In particular, the more extensive these ties are, the more severe are the effects of the sanctions on all the people involved. Although sanctions are ostensibly to pressure a government, my study demonstrates that the effect of sanctions has transnational consequences beyond that which is desirable or foreseen. This study broadens our understanding of human consequences of economic sanctions. It also has implications for policy-makers to consider their immigration populations before imposing sanctions.

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