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SoSe 22: The Emergence of National Identity from Eranšahr to Iran: Religious, Political and Social Strategies from Antiquity to the Present Day

Shervin Farridnejad

Comments

Today's modern Iran invokes a twofold significant but competing discourse of national identity, namely the ancient pre-Islamic customs and mythologies, as well as the Islamic Shi?i practices and beliefs. These two coexist and often reinforce each other. Both in the past and significantly in modern times, intellectuals and the state have regularly monopolized these narratives and traditions, to support and legitimize their ideologies. The result is an ambiguous notion of identity in Iran. This seminar will explore the complex processes involved in the formation of Iranian national identity. Particular attention will be paid to the importance of the collective national identity and the notions of ‘Iran’ as ‘home’, which will be further explained through exemplary analysis of identity-establishing rituals, festivals and mythologies in the form of political discourses and historical events. close

Suggested reading

• Amanat, Abbas. Iran. A modern history. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017. • Assmann, Aleida. Erinnerungsräume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses. München: C.H. Beck, 2018. • Assmann, Aleida. Formen des Vergessens. Historische Geisteswissenschaften 9. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2016. • Assmann, Jan. Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. München: Verlag C.H. Beck, 1997. • Kia, Mana. Persianate Selves: Memories of Place and Origin before Nationalism. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2020. • Marashi, Afshin. Nationalizing Iran: Culture, Power, and the State, 1870-1940. Studies in Modernity and National Identity. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008. • Mozaffari, Ali. Forming National Identity in Iran: The Idea of Homeland Derived from Ancient Persian and Islamic Imaginations of Place. London: I.B. Tauris, 2014. • Vaziri, Mostafa. Iran as Imagined Nation. The Construction of National Identity. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, Second edition.2013. close