My project explores why it is so difficult to reconcile questions about the nature and meaning of music in philosophy with the case of Iranian classical music. This tradition is highly performative, musicians rarely use scores, and, importantly, that anyone who calls herself a musician but cannot extemporize is not really considered much of a musician in Iran at all. Yet curiously, despite the emphasis on extemporization in this tradition, there is, nonetheless, a resounding sonic familiarity among performances considered as falling in the classical genre, so much so that it seems odd to say that extemporization is the extemporization of something new. Moreover, there is very little concern with musical works, as understood in the western classical sense. My first chapter articulates the methodology I advocate. This methodology is adapted from Lydia Goehr’s The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works (1992). Goehr offers a reading of the history western classical music that looks for the concepts around which its discourses center. I argue that the application of similar analysis to what scholars in other music traditions have to say about music will reveal something about the concepts around which their practices center. The emphasis is on reading the discourses of a practice for the concepts that dictate the thinking about it. This, I suggest, helps to make sense of what musicality means in the tradition in question. My central claim is that when Iranian classical music is read this way, one concept emerges as centrally significant. This concept is not of the work, but of embodied activity: a notion of doing in musical practice that relies heavily on the idea of musical dexterity in the performing moment, without this doing being oriented to the creation of something work-like. My second, third, and fourth chapters articulate and situate this reading against discussions about the ontological significance of performance in the philosophy of music. In my second chapter, I argue that the historical attention to mentally composed sound structures in Eduard Hanslick’s 1854 book, On the Musically Beautiful—a foundational text for the contemporary philosophy of music—leaves out the performing activity in musical practice. This, I suggest, is captured in the difference of approach to the musical nightingale: a metaphor that serves to illustrate musicality in the Iranian context but stands in Hanslick’s theory, for everything that music is not. In my third chapter, I offer a detailed reading of Iranian classical music to expose more fully the conceptual shape and force of the sort of embodied activity that the trope of the nightingale captures, when scholars of Iranian classical music analogize it—as they so often do—as the metaphorical aspiration of classical musicians, because it is considered the most musical being on earth in virtue of its dexterity. This, I contextualize using Polanyi’s notion of tacit knowledge (1966). In my fourth chapter, I explore the extent to which the reading I offer of Iranian classical music may be accommodated by contemporary discussions in the ontology of performance by turning to contemporary discussions that move away from addressing performances of works, but center on the significance of performative activity itself. This happens most commonly for the case of musical improvisation, after the question is introduced by Philip Alperson in “On Musical Improvisation” (1984). My claim here is that there is a crucial difference between the two cases. This difference is that embodied activity is not product-oriented in Iranian classical music practice, but rather, dexterity or technique oriented. In my final chapter, I explore how this insight can be extended more broadly into philosophical analysis, particularly in its comparative dimensions. I suggest there are implications not only for the ontology of performance, but notions of self-expression, creativity, and aesthetic attention, when they are considered in this culturally comparative light. In doing so, I hope to raise questions about the potential for doing non-reductive comparative ontology, and what can be gained, in a broad sense, from the effort of looking at artistic practice through a culturally different lens. / Philosophy

After moving to Los Angeles, California, polar opposite sisters Sahar and Roxana struggle to find jobs, husbands, and their Persian identity. Here’s hoping they can find the 405!

The course of history has been greatly defined by political and social events of tremendous significance; revolutions. Several of the most influential international alliances and feuds of the twenty-first century were generated by these occurrences, and states such as Russia and Iran have managed to deeply impact the international world order through their revolutionary behavior and ideology. It is due to its complexity and historical impact that the study of revolutions has informed the theoretical analyzes of political scientists. This study discusses prominent theories of revolution to provide an analytical framework: Marxism, Modernization, Relative Deprivation, and Mobilization. The thesis then assesses these theories by applying them to two of the most influential revolutions of the twentieth century: The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia and the Muslim Revolution of 1979 in Iran. Each case study addresses the economic, social, and political conditions present prior to each society’s respective revolution. A final comparison of both case studies, based on revolutionary theories, reveals the specific variables necessary for the formation and success of revolutionary movements.

Since its foundation, the Islamic Republic of Iran has developed its relationship with non-state allies throughout the Middle East and beyond, often using them to engage in proxy warfare with its enemies. This topic has seen increasing attention by academics and policy-makers. Using the proxy groups as case studies and classical comparison, this thesis analyzes what drives Iran to deploy these proxies to wage war on its enemies, and under which circumstances Iran does not engage in proxy warfare, as well as the factors that make Iran develop lasting and deep relationships with its proxies and under which circumstances these relationships stay superficial. Three main hypotheses are tested: first the identity-based hypothesis, that Iran feels compelled to help fellow Shias and the Palestinians in their struggles against local oppressors, the West and Israel, being driven by a responsibility to protect them born out of Shia religion and Khomeinist revolutionary ideology, together forming the Axis of resistance. Second the power-based hypothesis, that Iran is primarily driven by realist concerns to defend and secure itself and its sphere of influence, making proxies Iran’s pawns. Lastly a factionalism-based hypothesis, an alternative explanation is competition between the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Foreign Ministry as causing the IRGC to engage with proxies to pursue their foreign policy. By testing these three hypotheses in several case studies spanning four decades and geographically the Middle East and beyond, this thesis presents a comprehensive approach to the reasons behind Iranian proxy warfare as well as a contribution to a more identity and ideology focused approach to the study of proxy wars.

The author covers issues of gender and Iranian national identity as reflected in Iran’s first published woman novelist, Simin Daneshvar. Her novel, Savushun, is the first novel to be published by an Iranianwoman in 1969. The novel depicts Iran at the start of the country’s governmental factions in 1941 when Reza Shah Pahlavi overthrew years of Iranian dynasty and established a monarchy. This thesis explores how the novel is a vital part of Iran’s historical literature as well as essential to the present day discussion of gender and politics, especially for women within the patriarchal paradigm.

This thesis assesses the role of Turkey in the diplomatic process towards resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue within the context of its improving bilateral relations with Iran and analyzes the motives behind increasing Turkish involvement in this issue. Firstly, this thesis will present a historical overview of Iran

This work presents a first study of discourse features in Balochi narratives of Sistan. Discourse analysis investigates what are the properties that make for well-formed texts in a language. There are many approaches to discourse analysis and most approaches focus on a particular aspect of text formation. The approach to text linguistics or discourse analysis taken in this work is based on Dooley and Levinsohn’s Analyzing Discourse: A manual of basic concepts (2001). Their methodology has been refined over years of practical use and, among diverse methodologies, they follow a functional and cognitive approach. In this dissertation, Roberts’ (2009) application of Dooley and Levinsohn’s methodology to Persian is followed in the study of our Sistani Balochi text corpus. In chapters 2-7 this approach is applied to Balochi narrative text. Chapter two introduces the reader to the discourse-pragmatic structuring of sentences in BS and chapter three shows how different syntactic devices can distinguish foreground and background information in BS oral texts. In chapter four we study the deixis of time and place and how the concept of proximal and distal deixis applies across a range of deictic elements. Chapter five examines some basic connectives and how they link propositions in the discourse context, and in chapter six reported speech is studied. Chapter seven illustrates how different participants are introduced into a discourse and how their activation status is signalled throughout the discourse. Appendix 1 contains details of the Balochi text-corpus used, and Appendix 2 contains interlinearized versions of ten of the main texts used in the study. A CD with nine audio files and one video file of the ten texts from Appendix 2, plus one extra video file, is also included.

Plagued by diverging security interests, the United States and Iran have been unable to formally reestablish diplomatic relations since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Since 1989, the political environment in Iran underwent drastic changes with the passing of Ayatollah Khomeini. For the next sixteen years Iranian presidents attempted to normalize relations with the U.S. through various political, economic and social initiatives. It appeared as though the hostile relationship between the two countries was slowly becoming friendly. With the emergence of controversial populist president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the years of diplomatic progress between the U.S. and Iran were quickly reversed. In this comprehensive study of U.S.-Iranian relations, the various reasons behind the current diplomatic stalemate between the two countries will be thoroughly explored using the Graeme Davies’s interpretation of the Diversionary Theory of War. The study covers the length of time starting from 1989 and concludes with an overview of U.S.-Iranian relations in 2012. Unlike previous works on this subject matter, the study at hand is not a mere historiography of U.S-Iranian relations. On the contrary, this study provides a qualitative analysis of domestic factors in both countries that strongly influence their foreign policy decisions. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explain the reasons behind Iranian rapprochement efforts in a structured analytical manner.

Ce mémoire porte sur les problématiques de la représentativité, de l’occidentalisation et du discours orientaliste dans les mémoires autobiographiques rédigés par des femmes iraniennes vivant actuellement aux États-Unis. Basant nos arguments sur diverses théories critiques post-colonialistes (portant sur l’identité exilée/immigrante, la tradition orientaliste, la représentativité dans le genre autobiographique, l’occidentalisation, etc.), nous questionnerons l’authenticité narrative (et l’intention) des écrivaines irano-états-uniennes en explorant le processus d’assimilation culturelle (voire d’occidentalisation) qui engendre en elles une auto-perception fondamentalement orientaliste. Une fois internalisée par l’écrivaine, ce regard orientaliste est projeté sur le peuple iranien dont elle prétend être la porte-parole sincère et bien-intentionnée. Par contre, notre analyse déconstructiviste des mémoires irano-états-uniens démontre qu’il existe dans ces récits une tendance à renforcer la dichotomie orientaliste dominante (Occident-moderne-supérieur / Orient-arriéré-inférieur). Bien que les écrivaines prétendent de vouloir dévoiler les réalités du pays aux lecteurs et lectrices occidentaux, elles ne font que réitérer les stéréotypes négatifs sur l’Iran – les même stéréotypes d’ailleurs déjà promus par les médias de masse états-uniens. / This paper focuses on the interconnected issues of representation, Westernization, and Orientalist discourse in autobiographical memoirs written by Iranian female writers presently living in the United States. Founding my arguments on various post-colonialist theories (dealing with exile/immigrant identity, Orientalism, the issue of representation in the autobiographical genre, Westernization discourse, etc.), I question the discursive authenticity (and authorial intent) of Iranian-American female writers by exploring the process of cultural assimilation (i.e. Westernization) that engenders within them a fundamentally Orientalist self-perception. Once internalized by the writer, this Orientalist gaze is projected onto the Iranian people, whom the writer claims to be a credible and well-meaning representative of. However, my deconstructionist analysis of Iranian-American memoirs illustrates that these writers only contribute in reinforcing the dominant Orientalist binary (West-modern-superior / East-backwards-inferior). Although the writers claim to unveil the so-called realities of Iranian society to the Western readers, they merely reiterate the same negative stereotypes on Iran already present in American mainstream media.

This thesis is concerned with the concepts of exile, trauma, and nostalgia and how they all come together to create a sense of culture shock that the subjects of my thesis encountered. Azar Nafisi, Nahid Rachlin, Tara Bahrampour, and Azadeh Moaveni, are all Iranian-American authors, and despite their different life experiences and ages, they all encountered culture shock as it related to male-female relations, Iranian gender norms and issues of sex and sexuality and treatments and views of the female body as it relates to reproduction. / text