This study is on the political and ethical aspects of recent advances in genetics. Its aim is to explicate the scientific and technological premises of genetics along historical, philosophical and political axes by employing the critical perspectives of Jonas, Heidegger and Foucault. Starting the discussion from a brief account of scientific and technological revolutions initiated in the 16th and 17th centuries, I defend the thesis that the idea of control and manipulation of life is not a novelty introduced by genetics, but a historical orientation underlying modern man&rsquo / s metaphysical reasoning. That is to say, &lsquo / the idea of control and manipulation of life&rsquo / is not an unintended technological excess of genetic practices, and hence a transgression of our moral principles. Rather, this endeavour is a scientific and technological &lsquo / project&rsquo / which has been at the very core of modern man&rsquo / s rational political agenda. Therefore, any attempts to understand genetics from a na&iuml / ve Baconian utilitarianism and optimism fails to grasp its complicated political nature. For the ethical concerns to become more comprehensive, three genetic cases (prenatal screening tests, cloning, and genetic engineering) are examined in the light of the philosophical reflections of Jonas and Heidegger. Besides, following Foucault&rsquo / s critical assessments of medicine and bio-power, a &lsquo / fourth spatialization of disease&rsquo / is proposed at the end of the study in order to evaluate the transformations with the introduction of genetics into medicine. Consequently, it is argued that geneticized medicine might sign a new regime of bio-power &ndash / a reconfiguration of knowledge, power and subjectivity.

No description available.

Ce mémoire propose une analyse critique du discours de l’enregistrement sonore à domicile (home recording). Dans la foulée des propos mettant de l’avant l’ «accessibilité» et la «démocratisation» de l’enregistrement sonore, ce mémoire analyse les relations de savoir/pouvoir produites et légitimées par le discours, ce qu’elles permettent et contraignent, autorisent et excluent. Le corpus à l’étude est issu de la presse musicale ainsi que de forums de discussion en ligne relevant de sites spécialisés. Les méthodes utilisées sont inspirées de l’approche du discours développées par Michel Foucault et de ce que Johnson et. al. (2004) appellent l’interprétation critique. L’analyse met en évidence les deux principaux sujets du discours de l’enregistrement sonore à la maison : les professionnels de l’enregistrement et les «pros» de l’enregistrement à domicile, deux groupes constitués d’hommes financièrement aisés. Les règles qui régissent l’enregistrement à domicile semblent reprendre, en les adaptant, celles régissant les studios professionnels. Ce mémoire suggère que la «démocratisation» telle qu'énoncée dans ce discours articule l'«accessibilité contemporaine» à certains savoirs et certaines technologies à des exclusions singulières – comme des femmes et des personnes de moyens limités – qui rendent ce discours possible. Être dans le vrai, dans ce discours, c’est échanger, argumenter, discuter et prescrire des façons de faire et de dire qui font des studios professionnels l’espace des normes et des légitimités. Mots clés: enregistrement, musique, maison, domicile, studio, démocratisation, technologie, l'analyse du discours, relations de pouvoir/savoir, Michel Foucault. / This thesis proposes a critical analysis of the discourse of home recording. It aims to question home recording's will to truth by investigating what makes its statements possible, or what is the system of rules that authorize certain things to be said within the discourse. Driven by enunciations regarding home recording's "accessibility" and "democratization", this thesis analyzes the power/knowledge relations that have been produced and legitimized within the discourse, as well as what they enable and constrain, allow and exclude. Music magazines and Internet discussion forums form the corpus of this thesis. The methods used in this research are inspired by Michel Foucault's theory and method of discourse and by the approach known as critical interpretation (Johnson et al., 2004). This thesis' analysis shows that the government in home recording seems to be exerted by two main subjects: recording professionals and home recording "pros", who are overall characterized as well-off men. Moreover, the rules of home recording seem to be a replication and an adaptation to the home environment of the organizing principles of professional studios. This thesis suggests that "democratization" as enunciated and produced within and by the discourse of home recording articulates the discursive notion of a "contemporary accessibility" in terms of technology and knowledge to the exclusions – such as that of women and people of limited means – that make this discourse possible. These exclusions are legitimized through what is considered the "truth" within the discourse, as well as the norms and regulations established within it, which in turn follow the logic of the professional studio. Keywords: home, recording, studios, democratization, technology, discourse analysis, power/knowledge relations, Michel Foucault.

Pat Barker’s fictional account of the Great War, The Regeneration Trilogy, completed in 1995, is considered to be her most important work to date and has captured the imagination of the reading public as well as attracting considerable scholarly attention. Although the trilogy appears to be written in the realistic style of the traditional historical novel, Barker approaches the past with certain preoccupations from 1990s Britain and rewrites the past as seen through these contemporary lenses. Consequently, the trilogy illustrates not only how the past returns to haunt the present, but also how the present reciprocally haunts perceptions of the past. The haunting quality of the trilogy is developed through an extensive, intricate pattern of intertextuality. This reciprocal haunting at times breaks the realistic framework of the narrative, giving rise to anachronisms. This study offers a reading of trauma, class, gender and psychology as thematic areas where intertexts are activated, allowing Barker to revise and re-accentuate stories of the past. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of discourse and Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of dialogue, it focuses on the trilogy as an interactive link in an intertextual chain of communication about the Great War. Received versions of history are confirmed, expanded on and sometimes questioned. What is innovative about the trilogy is how Barker incorporates discursive formations not only from the Great War period, but from the whole twentieth century. The Great War is regenerated and transformed as it passes from one dialogic context to another. My reading shows that the trilogy presents social structures from different historical epochs through dialogism and diachronicity, making the present-day matrices of power and knowledge that continue to surround, determine and limit people’s lives highly visible. The Regeneration Trilogy regenerates the past, simultaneously confirming Barker’s claim that the historical novel can also be “a backdoor into the present”.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:35:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 3043.pdf: 13472377 bytes, checksum: 643372ef6a8710eaf7b934def17e7b5e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-03-31 / The Fine-Arts Teaching System, founded by the École des Beaux-Arts of Paris in its Architecture Course, which lasted from 1671 to 1968, is considered to be a supreme asset of cultural and symbolic importance in which the traditional school, related to the French capitalist state, was expressed. Furthermore, it is also understood to be cultural capital which merits preservation. The history of the École, the world's most famous institution for the teaching of art and which has influenced the installation of ramifications of its model in various countries, reveals a series of crises which culminated with the final catastrophe in 1968, when the Architecture Course was closed and the competition for the Great Prize of Rome was discontinued. Throughout its history the École always maintained its base in relationships with powerful groups related to the nobility and influenced by prestige, status, pleasure and knowlege. These facts serve to explain the political and cultural processes which have preserved the important relevance of the Fine-Arts Teaching System. Power is an intrinsic factor of art and of the understanding of its essence, originality and knowledgepower, and this is evident and explicit in the formation of the systematised enlightenment of Graeco-Roman classicism conceived in the neoclassic style and practised rightly by the famous French school. The "rigid"classic rules, on being systematised, became powerknowledge to benefit primarily the aristocracy, the monarchical State and afterwards the interests of an authoritarian State regime. The closure of the Architecture Course and the extinction of the Great Prize of Rome Competition , while confirming the phenomenon of genealogical power, exposes the problem of non-flexibilisation of Education in the political and cultural areas in order to defend, above all, the knowledge-power of art in the classic model of Fine-Arts. The industrialisation and growth of the cities and the emergence of new social and political structures, together with their "utopias", are facts which have changed the positive power of classic works to that of technology and of engineering, thus giving origin to modern archtecture. These developments were not considered in relation to the principles of Graeco-Roman culture, which were founded in humanism as represented in the poetry of expression of sensitivity and of emotion. In this respect research indicates defence of the educational principles of a school interested in art and archtecture and focused on the potential it has for the communication of knowledge. In such connection, it should be remembered that schools in general, obsessed as they are by the spirit of commercial objectivity, tend to favour the power-knowledge attitude. Nevertheless, the knowledge-power of the Fine-Arts Teaching System can be saved and should be appreciated as the basic teaching value of a school disinterested in power without knowledge, which is to say power that is not intrinsically art. / O Sistema de Ensino Belas-Artes, instituído pela École des Beaux-Arts de Paris no Curso de Arquitetura de 1671 a 1968, é compreendido como um capital simbólico e cultural valioso, no qual a tradicional escola, relacionado ao Estado capitalista francês, se expressou. A história da École a mais famosa instituição de ensino da arte do mundo, que influenciou a criação de ramificações de seu modelo em vários países revela um processo de crises que culminaram no abalo fatal de 1968, no qual aconteceu o fechamento do Curso de Arquitetura e a extinção do concurso O Grande Prêmio de Roma. Essa história teve sempre como base as relações de poder, vinculado à nobreza, ao prestigio, ao status, ao prazer e ao saber, e serve para explicar os processos políticos e culturais que operaram a pertinência do Sistema de Ensino Belas- Artes. O poder intrínseco à arte, do saber na sua essência e originalidade, saber-poder, evidencia-se e explica-se na construção do conhecimento sistematizado do classicismo grecoromano, concebido no estilo neoclássico, operado justamente pela famosa escola francesa. Os rígidos cânones clássicos, ao serem sistematizados, tornaram-se poder-saber para servir primeiramente à aristocracia, os quais compunham o Estado monárquico, e depois aos interesses de um Estado autoritário. O fechamento do Curso de Arquitetura e a extinção do concurso O Grande Prêmio de Roma, ao confirmarem o fenômeno do poder na sua genealogia, expõem o caráter do problema da não flexibilização do Ensino no campo político e cultural, a fim de defender, sobretudo, o saber-poder da arte no modelo clássico das Belas- Artes. A industrialização e o crescimento das cidades, o surgimento de novas estruturas sociais e políticas, bem como suas utopias, são fatos que deslocaram o poder de construção de obras clássicas para o da tecnologia e da engenharia, dando assim origem a arquitetura moderna. Esses acontecimentos, não foram refletidos e relacionados aos princípios da cultura greco-romana, fundados no humanismo e implicados na poética da expressão do sensível e na emoção. Assim, a pesquisa aponta a defesa do processo educacional de uma escola interessada na arte e na arquitetura no sentido do potencial que elas tem de instaurar o saber, considerando que as escolas, de modo geral, tendem a ser interessadas no poder-saber, envolvidas, como são, pelo espírito da objetividade mercantilista. Todavia, o saber-poder no Sistema de Ensino Belas-Artes pode ser resgatado e deve ser prezado como base, em uma escola de um ensino desinteressado do poder que não seja saber, isto é, que não seja da arte intrinsecamente.

Especialmente após a Segunda Guerra Mundial, a língua inglesa alcançou o status de língua franca mundial e vem ocupando um espaço cada vez maior na vida dos sujeitos contemporâneos, independente de suas origens ou localização geográfica. A presença maciça desse idioma no contexto brasileiro em materiais didáticos, romances, dicionários, gramáticas, roupas, produtos de beleza, músicas, videoclipes, filmes, séries de TV, livros de bolso, revistas em quadrinhos, revistas de informação, alimentos, tecnologia, ciência, modelos de comportamento e de educação formal produzidos e/ou associados aos países anglófonos – especialmente Estados Unidos e Inglaterra − possibilita que seja possível se pensar na produção de um universo da língua inglesa. Tal ferramenta conceitual refere-se à amplitude dos domínios, das práticas e dos discursos colonizados por esse idioma. Com base numa perspectiva que vê a linguagem como constituinte da realidade e a educação como um processo que não se restringe às instituições determinadas para esse fim, mas se estende a uma série de outros lugares, defendo que o universo da língua inglesa, presente em nossas vidas nas mais diversas materialidades, apresenta-se enquanto um dos elementos-chave da constituição dos sujeitos contemporâneos. Articulado numa lógica neoliberal de mercado, ele atravessa e constitui uma poderosa rede que produz determinadas formas de ser, estar, agir e pensar na contemporaneidade. Essa lógica está diretamente atrelada à transformação dos sujeitos em mercadorias, que são impelidos a consumir produtos, ideias, comportamentos, pessoas, empregos, códigos de conduta associados à ou forjados a partir dessa língua. O objetivo deste trabalho é problematizar o caráter imperativo do universo da língua inglesa na constituição dos sujeitos contemporâneos. Utilizo como ferramentas teóricas os conceitos de identidade, subjetividade, neoliberalismo, capital humano, ambivalência, governo, dispositivo, Império, comodificação do sujeito para analisar o corpus selecionado para a presente pesquisa. Este compreende videoclipes de músicas em língua inglesa, relatórios do Conselho Britânico, sites desta instituição e de cursos de inglês on-line, projetos de lei antiestrangeirismos, reportagens sobre o Movimento Inglês como Língua Única (English Only Movement), reportagens e anúncios de jornais e revistas publicados no Brasil que envolvam a língua inglesa. Os resultados desta pesquisa apontam para a abrangência e a hegemonia da língua inglesa como língua adicional. Eles confirmam que ela é uma poderosa linha de força do dispositivo neoliberal, articulada na produção de sujeitos consumistas, flexíveis, globalizados, que têm na mídia um dos principais locus de subjetivação. Esses sujeitos são comodificados e incitados a fazer investimentos constantes e infinitos em seu capital humano para se manterem atrativos e desejáveis. / Especially after the Great World War II, English has been considered a worldwide lingua franca and it has increasingly been playing a major role in people‟s live irrespective of their origins or where they are. The huge use of English words and expressions in textbooks, novels, dictionaries, grammars, fashion, beauty products, songs, videos, movies, TV series, pocketbooks, comic books, magazines, food, technology, science, behavior codes, and English-speaking countries educational models − mainly from the United States and England − makes it possible to think that an English language universe is taken place right in front of us. This concept refers to the wideness of its domain, practices, and discourses colonized in and through this language. Based on a perspective that sees language as part of our sense of reality construction and Education as a process that goes beyond traditional educational sets, I advocate that English language universe, which is part of our lives through many different materialities, is one of the key elements in the constitution of contemporary subjects. Linked up with neo-liberal market value rationality, it goes through and constitutes a powerful assemblage that produces specific ways of being, acting, and thinking at the present time. This rationality is directed to molding subjects into commodities prompted to consume goods, ideas, behavior codes, people, and jobs connected with or built through English. This work aims at problematizing the imperative of English language universe in the subjects‟ constitution. I use the concepts of identity, subjectivity, neo-liberalism, human capital, ambivalence, govern, apparatus, Empire, and commodification of subjects as theoretical tools in order to analyze the corpus selected for this research. It comprehends videos from songs in English, British Council reports and captures from its website as well as on-line English language schools, bills against foreign language use in Brazil, articles on the English Only Movement, as well as magazine and newspaper articles related to the English language. Results point out to English wideness and hegemony as an additional language in Brazil. They also confirm that this language helps to enhance and maintain neo-liberal apparatus, linked up with the production consumer, flexible, globalized subjects who have the media as the one of the main locus of subjectification. These subjects are commoditized and prompted to invest in their own human capital to keep themselves attractive and desirable.

This research regarding power/knowledge abuse within the church was conducted within the postmodern social construction discourse and in the context of narrative therapy, feminist theology and practical theology. It presents a chronicle of five individuals who experienced abuse within their congregations. It reflects on the co-authoring journey of these five individuals personally and within the context of the narrative group. As part of the narrative group they came to re-author their lives around what they had experienced regarding abuse within their churches. Together they challenged those dominant structures that are so often hidden just below `sacred' tradition. In conclusion the five individuals experienced a renaissance within themselves and their personal theology of God and His dealings within the church. This renaissance has led them to seek out others who have experienced this form of abuse and to give them the hope that they discovered together. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology - with specialisation in Pastoral Therapy)

Especialmente após a Segunda Guerra Mundial, a língua inglesa alcançou o status de língua franca mundial e vem ocupando um espaço cada vez maior na vida dos sujeitos contemporâneos, independente de suas origens ou localização geográfica. A presença maciça desse idioma no contexto brasileiro em materiais didáticos, romances, dicionários, gramáticas, roupas, produtos de beleza, músicas, videoclipes, filmes, séries de TV, livros de bolso, revistas em quadrinhos, revistas de informação, alimentos, tecnologia, ciência, modelos de comportamento e de educação formal produzidos e/ou associados aos países anglófonos – especialmente Estados Unidos e Inglaterra − possibilita que seja possível se pensar na produção de um universo da língua inglesa. Tal ferramenta conceitual refere-se à amplitude dos domínios, das práticas e dos discursos colonizados por esse idioma. Com base numa perspectiva que vê a linguagem como constituinte da realidade e a educação como um processo que não se restringe às instituições determinadas para esse fim, mas se estende a uma série de outros lugares, defendo que o universo da língua inglesa, presente em nossas vidas nas mais diversas materialidades, apresenta-se enquanto um dos elementos-chave da constituição dos sujeitos contemporâneos. Articulado numa lógica neoliberal de mercado, ele atravessa e constitui uma poderosa rede que produz determinadas formas de ser, estar, agir e pensar na contemporaneidade. Essa lógica está diretamente atrelada à transformação dos sujeitos em mercadorias, que são impelidos a consumir produtos, ideias, comportamentos, pessoas, empregos, códigos de conduta associados à ou forjados a partir dessa língua. O objetivo deste trabalho é problematizar o caráter imperativo do universo da língua inglesa na constituição dos sujeitos contemporâneos. Utilizo como ferramentas teóricas os conceitos de identidade, subjetividade, neoliberalismo, capital humano, ambivalência, governo, dispositivo, Império, comodificação do sujeito para analisar o corpus selecionado para a presente pesquisa. Este compreende videoclipes de músicas em língua inglesa, relatórios do Conselho Britânico, sites desta instituição e de cursos de inglês on-line, projetos de lei antiestrangeirismos, reportagens sobre o Movimento Inglês como Língua Única (English Only Movement), reportagens e anúncios de jornais e revistas publicados no Brasil que envolvam a língua inglesa. Os resultados desta pesquisa apontam para a abrangência e a hegemonia da língua inglesa como língua adicional. Eles confirmam que ela é uma poderosa linha de força do dispositivo neoliberal, articulada na produção de sujeitos consumistas, flexíveis, globalizados, que têm na mídia um dos principais locus de subjetivação. Esses sujeitos são comodificados e incitados a fazer investimentos constantes e infinitos em seu capital humano para se manterem atrativos e desejáveis. / Especially after the Great World War II, English has been considered a worldwide lingua franca and it has increasingly been playing a major role in people‟s live irrespective of their origins or where they are. The huge use of English words and expressions in textbooks, novels, dictionaries, grammars, fashion, beauty products, songs, videos, movies, TV series, pocketbooks, comic books, magazines, food, technology, science, behavior codes, and English-speaking countries educational models − mainly from the United States and England − makes it possible to think that an English language universe is taken place right in front of us. This concept refers to the wideness of its domain, practices, and discourses colonized in and through this language. Based on a perspective that sees language as part of our sense of reality construction and Education as a process that goes beyond traditional educational sets, I advocate that English language universe, which is part of our lives through many different materialities, is one of the key elements in the constitution of contemporary subjects. Linked up with neo-liberal market value rationality, it goes through and constitutes a powerful assemblage that produces specific ways of being, acting, and thinking at the present time. This rationality is directed to molding subjects into commodities prompted to consume goods, ideas, behavior codes, people, and jobs connected with or built through English. This work aims at problematizing the imperative of English language universe in the subjects‟ constitution. I use the concepts of identity, subjectivity, neo-liberalism, human capital, ambivalence, govern, apparatus, Empire, and commodification of subjects as theoretical tools in order to analyze the corpus selected for this research. It comprehends videos from songs in English, British Council reports and captures from its website as well as on-line English language schools, bills against foreign language use in Brazil, articles on the English Only Movement, as well as magazine and newspaper articles related to the English language. Results point out to English wideness and hegemony as an additional language in Brazil. They also confirm that this language helps to enhance and maintain neo-liberal apparatus, linked up with the production consumer, flexible, globalized subjects who have the media as the one of the main locus of subjectification. These subjects are commoditized and prompted to invest in their own human capital to keep themselves attractive and desirable.

Especialmente após a Segunda Guerra Mundial, a língua inglesa alcançou o status de língua franca mundial e vem ocupando um espaço cada vez maior na vida dos sujeitos contemporâneos, independente de suas origens ou localização geográfica. A presença maciça desse idioma no contexto brasileiro em materiais didáticos, romances, dicionários, gramáticas, roupas, produtos de beleza, músicas, videoclipes, filmes, séries de TV, livros de bolso, revistas em quadrinhos, revistas de informação, alimentos, tecnologia, ciência, modelos de comportamento e de educação formal produzidos e/ou associados aos países anglófonos – especialmente Estados Unidos e Inglaterra − possibilita que seja possível se pensar na produção de um universo da língua inglesa. Tal ferramenta conceitual refere-se à amplitude dos domínios, das práticas e dos discursos colonizados por esse idioma. Com base numa perspectiva que vê a linguagem como constituinte da realidade e a educação como um processo que não se restringe às instituições determinadas para esse fim, mas se estende a uma série de outros lugares, defendo que o universo da língua inglesa, presente em nossas vidas nas mais diversas materialidades, apresenta-se enquanto um dos elementos-chave da constituição dos sujeitos contemporâneos. Articulado numa lógica neoliberal de mercado, ele atravessa e constitui uma poderosa rede que produz determinadas formas de ser, estar, agir e pensar na contemporaneidade. Essa lógica está diretamente atrelada à transformação dos sujeitos em mercadorias, que são impelidos a consumir produtos, ideias, comportamentos, pessoas, empregos, códigos de conduta associados à ou forjados a partir dessa língua. O objetivo deste trabalho é problematizar o caráter imperativo do universo da língua inglesa na constituição dos sujeitos contemporâneos. Utilizo como ferramentas teóricas os conceitos de identidade, subjetividade, neoliberalismo, capital humano, ambivalência, governo, dispositivo, Império, comodificação do sujeito para analisar o corpus selecionado para a presente pesquisa. Este compreende videoclipes de músicas em língua inglesa, relatórios do Conselho Britânico, sites desta instituição e de cursos de inglês on-line, projetos de lei antiestrangeirismos, reportagens sobre o Movimento Inglês como Língua Única (English Only Movement), reportagens e anúncios de jornais e revistas publicados no Brasil que envolvam a língua inglesa. Os resultados desta pesquisa apontam para a abrangência e a hegemonia da língua inglesa como língua adicional. Eles confirmam que ela é uma poderosa linha de força do dispositivo neoliberal, articulada na produção de sujeitos consumistas, flexíveis, globalizados, que têm na mídia um dos principais locus de subjetivação. Esses sujeitos são comodificados e incitados a fazer investimentos constantes e infinitos em seu capital humano para se manterem atrativos e desejáveis. / Especially after the Great World War II, English has been considered a worldwide lingua franca and it has increasingly been playing a major role in people‟s live irrespective of their origins or where they are. The huge use of English words and expressions in textbooks, novels, dictionaries, grammars, fashion, beauty products, songs, videos, movies, TV series, pocketbooks, comic books, magazines, food, technology, science, behavior codes, and English-speaking countries educational models − mainly from the United States and England − makes it possible to think that an English language universe is taken place right in front of us. This concept refers to the wideness of its domain, practices, and discourses colonized in and through this language. Based on a perspective that sees language as part of our sense of reality construction and Education as a process that goes beyond traditional educational sets, I advocate that English language universe, which is part of our lives through many different materialities, is one of the key elements in the constitution of contemporary subjects. Linked up with neo-liberal market value rationality, it goes through and constitutes a powerful assemblage that produces specific ways of being, acting, and thinking at the present time. This rationality is directed to molding subjects into commodities prompted to consume goods, ideas, behavior codes, people, and jobs connected with or built through English. This work aims at problematizing the imperative of English language universe in the subjects‟ constitution. I use the concepts of identity, subjectivity, neo-liberalism, human capital, ambivalence, govern, apparatus, Empire, and commodification of subjects as theoretical tools in order to analyze the corpus selected for this research. It comprehends videos from songs in English, British Council reports and captures from its website as well as on-line English language schools, bills against foreign language use in Brazil, articles on the English Only Movement, as well as magazine and newspaper articles related to the English language. Results point out to English wideness and hegemony as an additional language in Brazil. They also confirm that this language helps to enhance and maintain neo-liberal apparatus, linked up with the production consumer, flexible, globalized subjects who have the media as the one of the main locus of subjectification. These subjects are commoditized and prompted to invest in their own human capital to keep themselves attractive and desirable.

Russia and Iran have been subject to mutual influence since the reign of Shah Abbas I (1588-1629). For most of the time this relationship was not one of equals: since the early nineteenth century and lasting at least until 1946, Russia and then the USSR, in strong competition with Britain, had been gradually, and for the most part steadily, increasing its political, cultural and economic influence within Iran up to very high levels. Nevertheless, the history of Russian/Soviet-Iranian relations still remains understudied, particularly in English-language scholarship. One of the main reasons for this gap must be sought in the hampered access of Western researchers to Russian archives during the Soviet time, which made them draw on Russian-language literature, traditionally pre-occupied with the history of social movements, and with the mechanical retelling of political and economic processes. Thus the cultural and political ties of the two countries on institutional and individual levels (especially during the period surrounding 1917), the influence of Russia, and then of the USSR, on Iran and vice versa, in political, economic and cultural spheres through the activities of individuals, as well as the methods and tools used by the “Big Northern neighbour” during the execution of its foreign policy towards Iran did not receive proper attention, and thus lack detailed analysis. This research addresses the lack of detailed analysis of the power/knowledge nexus in relation to Russia’s Persian/Iranian Studies – the largest and most influential sub-domain within Russia’s Oriental Studies during the late Imperial and the early Soviet periods. The specific focus of this study is the involvement of Russian ‘civilian’ (academic) and ‘practical’ (military officers, diplomats, and missionaries) Persian Studies scholarship in Russian foreign policy towards Persia/Iran from the end of the nineteenth century up to 1941 – a period witnessing some of the most crucial events in the history of both countries. It is during this period that Persia/Iran was the pivot of Russia’s Eastern foreign policy but at the same time almost every significant development inside Russia as well as in her Western policies also had an immediate impact on this country – the state of affairs that ultimately culminated in the second Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941. My thesis is based on extensive research in eleven important political, military and academic archives of Russia and Georgia, which allowed me to consult a significant amount of hitherto unpublished, often still unprocessed and only recently declassified, primary sources. While engaging with notions such as Orientalism, my analysis aims at transcending Edward Said’s concept of a mere complicity of knowledge with imperial power. My theoretical approach builds on Michel Foucault’s conceptualisation of the interplay of power/knowledge relations, his notion of discourse, and his writings on the role of the intellectual. While demonstrating the full applicability of the Foucauldian model to the Russian case through the study of the power/knowledge nexus in late Imperial and early Soviet Russia’s Persian Studies, or Iranology, I focus on the activities of scholars and experts within their own professional domains and analyse what motivated them and how their own views, beliefs and intentions correlated with their work, how their activities were influenced by the hegemonic discourses within Russian society. I analyse the interaction of these intellectuals with state structures and their participation in the process of shaping and conducting foreign policy towards Iran, both as part of the Russian scholarly community as a whole and as individuals on the personal level. For the first time my work explores at such level of detail the specific institutional practices of Russia’s Oriental Studies, including the organisation of scholarly intelligence networks, the taking advantage of state power for the promotion of institutional interests, the profound engagement with Russia’s domestic and foreign policy discourses of the time, etc. In addition, the thesis presents a detailed assessment of the organisation of Iranology as a leading sub-domain within the broader scholarly field of Oriental Studies in the period from the end of the nineteenth century to 1941 and analyses the principles and mechanisms of its involvement in Russia’s foreign policy towards Persia/Iran.