Iran is hardly perceived as a normal country, whether it be by Western commentators and politicians critical of the government, Iranian leaders who impart special distinction to it, or ordinary Iranians protesting against it. This sense of anomaly has become so ingrained that some factions of the Iranian opposition take to social media to express their yearning for a “normal life.” Economic peculiarities form one aspect of Iran's supposed abnormality, and the solution to them is posited as the establishment of a free market economy. Without denying the specificities of contemporary Iran, in this contribution I seek to scrutinize the very norms against which it is compared. I challenge the pathologizing approach that identifies Iran outside of or at the margins of history as a failing or stagnating polity and economy. This approach presupposes that a singular pattern of capitalist modernity is capable of yielding progress and prosperity, and diagnoses developmental shortcomings as the automatic outcome of deviating from a normal path of development.
{"title":"Capitalist Lineages of Early Modern Iran","authors":"Maziar Samiee","doi":"10.1017/irn.2023.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/irn.2023.7","url":null,"abstract":"Iran is hardly perceived as a normal country, whether it be by Western commentators and politicians critical of the government, Iranian leaders who impart special distinction to it, or ordinary Iranians protesting against it. This sense of anomaly has become so ingrained that some factions of the Iranian opposition take to social media to express their yearning for a “normal life.” Economic peculiarities form one aspect of Iran's supposed abnormality, and the solution to them is posited as the establishment of a free market economy. Without denying the specificities of contemporary Iran, in this contribution I seek to scrutinize the very norms against which it is compared. I challenge the pathologizing approach that identifies Iran outside of or at the margins of history as a failing or stagnating polity and economy. This approach presupposes that a singular pattern of capitalist modernity is capable of yielding progress and prosperity, and diagnoses developmental shortcomings as the automatic outcome of deviating from a normal path of development.","PeriodicalId":46025,"journal":{"name":"Iranian Studies","volume":"96 1","pages":"409 - 412"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81362232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Capitalism used to be a singular term, but, like many keywords in English, now is often presented and discussed as a plural: capitalisms. Whereas capitalism formerly stood for what today is called industrial capitalism, scholars currently talk about varieties of capitalism: commercial capitalism, industrial capitalism, financial capitalism, and neoliberal capitalism, to name but the most prominent historical variants. Given this proliferation, and the inherent difficulty of defining capitalism, singular, it is important to be clear about the meaning and function of our object of inquiry. After all, “different definitions lead to different conclusions and may make for very different histories.”
{"title":"Writing Capitalism into Iranian History","authors":"R. Matthee","doi":"10.1017/irn.2023.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/irn.2023.9","url":null,"abstract":"Capitalism used to be a singular term, but, like many keywords in English, now is often presented and discussed as a plural: capitalisms. Whereas capitalism formerly stood for what today is called industrial capitalism, scholars currently talk about varieties of capitalism: commercial capitalism, industrial capitalism, financial capitalism, and neoliberal capitalism, to name but the most prominent historical variants. Given this proliferation, and the inherent difficulty of defining capitalism, singular, it is important to be clear about the meaning and function of our object of inquiry. After all, “different definitions lead to different conclusions and may make for very different histories.”","PeriodicalId":46025,"journal":{"name":"Iranian Studies","volume":"77 1 1","pages":"403 - 407"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83436254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Creating the Modern Iranian Woman: Popular Culture between Two Revolutions. Liora Hendelman-Baavur (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019). 340 pp. ISBN: 9781108498074 (hardcover)","authors":"Elham Naeej","doi":"10.1017/irn.2022.60","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/irn.2022.60","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46025,"journal":{"name":"Iranian Studies","volume":"18 1","pages":"415 - 418"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83312479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In answering the motivating question of this roundtable—How, if at all, has capitalism as an analytical category figured in your work?—I separate my approach from two opposed but equally extreme camps of left-leaning scholars working on postrevolutionary Iran. The first camp underestimates the actuality of capitalism in Iran. It takes as its frame of reference neoliberal capitalism in the context of the Global North and contrasts it to an Iranian political economy lacking both the hallmarks of political liberalism and a robust economy to extrapolate that postrevolutionary Iran is not truly capitalist, without explaining why classic capitalistic class relations are continuously reproduced there. By contrast, the second camp overestimates the reality of capitalism in Iran, claiming that all aspects of collective social and political life are, in fact, now essentially capitalistic. This perspective rejects the relative autonomy of the state, culture, and other aspects of social life and the necessity for historical explanation of social and political complexities. Instead, it considers postrevolutionary Iran a purely capitalistic formation and explains its economy and politics through the logic of capital alone, without acknowledging the real weaknesses of capitalist production found there.
{"title":"A Capitalist Economy without Robust Capitalist Production","authors":"Mohammad Maljoo","doi":"10.1017/irn.2023.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/irn.2023.11","url":null,"abstract":"In answering the motivating question of this roundtable—How, if at all, has capitalism as an analytical category figured in your work?—I separate my approach from two opposed but equally extreme camps of left-leaning scholars working on postrevolutionary Iran. The first camp underestimates the actuality of capitalism in Iran. It takes as its frame of reference neoliberal capitalism in the context of the Global North and contrasts it to an Iranian political economy lacking both the hallmarks of political liberalism and a robust economy to extrapolate that postrevolutionary Iran is not truly capitalist, without explaining why classic capitalistic class relations are continuously reproduced there. By contrast, the second camp overestimates the reality of capitalism in Iran, claiming that all aspects of collective social and political life are, in fact, now essentially capitalistic. This perspective rejects the relative autonomy of the state, culture, and other aspects of social life and the necessity for historical explanation of social and political complexities. Instead, it considers postrevolutionary Iran a purely capitalistic formation and explains its economy and politics through the logic of capital alone, without acknowledging the real weaknesses of capitalist production found there.","PeriodicalId":46025,"journal":{"name":"Iranian Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":"395 - 398"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84831810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Islamic Republic of Iran is confronting a crisis. Thousands of Iranians, within and without Iran, have taken to the streets to call for an end to a regime that sanctions violence against its citizens and a future of dwindling opportunity for its youth. These ongoing protests, catalyzed by the killing of Mahsa Amini, seem at once to have nothing and everything to do with the question motivating this roundtable: How can capitalism help us understand Iran, past or present? Some might argue that capitalism can scarcely act as a cipher for understanding recent unrest in Iran; it has hardly entered the slogans and symbolism of the protests, which decry police violence, state corruption, forced gender segregation, arbitrary punishment, and the greed of ruling military and religious elites more than they do a worldwide web of capitalist relations sustained by no single political party, religion, or country.
{"title":"Writing Capitalism into Iran: A Roundtable Discussion","authors":"B. Mousavi, K. Ehsani","doi":"10.1017/irn.2023.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/irn.2023.10","url":null,"abstract":"The Islamic Republic of Iran is confronting a crisis. Thousands of Iranians, within and without Iran, have taken to the streets to call for an end to a regime that sanctions violence against its citizens and a future of dwindling opportunity for its youth. These ongoing protests, catalyzed by the killing of Mahsa Amini, seem at once to have nothing and everything to do with the question motivating this roundtable: How can capitalism help us understand Iran, past or present? Some might argue that capitalism can scarcely act as a cipher for understanding recent unrest in Iran; it has hardly entered the slogans and symbolism of the protests, which decry police violence, state corruption, forced gender segregation, arbitrary punishment, and the greed of ruling military and religious elites more than they do a worldwide web of capitalist relations sustained by no single political party, religion, or country.","PeriodicalId":46025,"journal":{"name":"Iranian Studies","volume":"39 1","pages":"387 - 389"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88355351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the historiography of Iran, capitalism is commonly evoked as a “concept of difference.” By this, I mean that the term is regularly used to characterize socioeconomic phenomena as modern versus traditional, leading versus laggard, foreign versus indigenous, or hero versus villain in an assumed direction of history. As Jürgen Kocka remarked when coining the phrase, most definitions of capitalism since the nineteenth century have been used by intellectuals to distinguish experiences of their own time from either the past or the future. And it is in terms of this rhetorical function that its significance and limitations for Iranian historiography can be analyzed.
{"title":"Capitalism as a Concept of Difference in the Historiography of Iran","authors":"Kevan Harris","doi":"10.1017/irn.2023.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/irn.2023.8","url":null,"abstract":"In the historiography of Iran, capitalism is commonly evoked as a “concept of difference.” By this, I mean that the term is regularly used to characterize socioeconomic phenomena as modern versus traditional, leading versus laggard, foreign versus indigenous, or hero versus villain in an assumed direction of history. As Jürgen Kocka remarked when coining the phrase, most definitions of capitalism since the nineteenth century have been used by intellectuals to distinguish experiences of their own time from either the past or the future. And it is in terms of this rhetorical function that its significance and limitations for Iranian historiography can be analyzed.","PeriodicalId":46025,"journal":{"name":"Iranian Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"391 - 394"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76264680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Johannes Thomas Pieter de Bruijn was born on 12 July 1931 in Leiden, and died on Monday, 23 January 2023, in Voorhout, the Netherlands. He studied Semitic languages, and Islam and Persian and Turkish as minors, at Leiden University. From 1954 to 1960 he collaborated in the Concordance et Indices de la Tradition Musulmane project, which was published under the auspices of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam. He also contributed to the editing of the English version of Jan Rypka’s History of Iranian Literature, which was published in Dordrecht in 1968. From 1960 to 1963, he was curator of the Middle Eastern department at the Dutch National Museum of Ethnology. In 1964 he joined the staff of Leiden University, where he took the chair of Persian in 1988. He built up a Persian department that included expertise on Shiism and modern Persian literature, and created a documentation center for modern Iran, under the directorship of the late Kamil Banak. De Bruijn will be chiefly known for his erudition on classical Persian poetry, especially religious poetry. His name is linked with that of the great poet Ḥakīm Sanāʾī (d. 1131), as he spent many years of his active scholarship on this epoch-making poet. He wrote a seminal monograph on Sanāʾī’s life and work, entitled Of Piety and Poetry, which has also been
Johannes Thomas Pieter de Bruijn于1931年7月12日出生在莱顿，并于2023年1月23日星期一在荷兰Voorhout去世。他在莱顿大学(Leiden University)辅修了闪族语言、伊斯兰教、波斯语和土耳其语。从1954年到1960年，他参与了在阿姆斯特丹的荷兰皇家艺术与科学学院的赞助下出版的《传统穆斯林的和谐与索引》项目。他还参与了Jan Rypka的《伊朗文学史》英文版的编辑工作，该书于1968年在多德雷赫特出版。1960年至1963年，他担任荷兰国家民族学博物馆中东部馆长。1964年，他加入莱顿大学(Leiden University)， 1988年担任波斯语系主任。他建立了一个波斯语系，专门研究什叶派和现代波斯文学，并创建了一个现代伊朗文献中心，由已故的卡米尔·巴纳克(Kamil Banak)担任主任。德布鲁因主要以其对古典波斯诗歌，尤其是宗教诗歌的博学而闻名。他的名字与伟大的诗人Ḥakīm sanha ā al ā(1131年)联系在一起，因为他花了很多年的时间来研究这位划时代的诗人。他写了一本关于桑尼的生活和工作的开创性的专著，题为《虔诚与诗歌》
{"title":"J. T. P. de Bruijn (1931–2023) The bird of Time completes its round","authors":"Asghar Seyed‐Gohrab","doi":"10.1017/irn.2023.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/irn.2023.13","url":null,"abstract":"Johannes Thomas Pieter de Bruijn was born on 12 July 1931 in Leiden, and died on Monday, 23 January 2023, in Voorhout, the Netherlands. He studied Semitic languages, and Islam and Persian and Turkish as minors, at Leiden University. From 1954 to 1960 he collaborated in the Concordance et Indices de la Tradition Musulmane project, which was published under the auspices of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam. He also contributed to the editing of the English version of Jan Rypka’s History of Iranian Literature, which was published in Dordrecht in 1968. From 1960 to 1963, he was curator of the Middle Eastern department at the Dutch National Museum of Ethnology. In 1964 he joined the staff of Leiden University, where he took the chair of Persian in 1988. He built up a Persian department that included expertise on Shiism and modern Persian literature, and created a documentation center for modern Iran, under the directorship of the late Kamil Banak. De Bruijn will be chiefly known for his erudition on classical Persian poetry, especially religious poetry. His name is linked with that of the great poet Ḥakīm Sanāʾī (d. 1131), as he spent many years of his active scholarship on this epoch-making poet. He wrote a seminal monograph on Sanāʾī’s life and work, entitled Of Piety and Poetry, which has also been","PeriodicalId":46025,"journal":{"name":"Iranian Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"429 - 434"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72527140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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