9781784780685 (hardback)

1784780685 (hardback)

9781784780962

9781784780708

"A history of the cosmopolitan forces that made contemporary Iran "No ruling regime," writes Hamid Dabashi, "could ever have a total claim over the idea of Iran as a nation, a people." For decades, the narrative about Iran has been dominated by a false binary, in which the traditional ruling Islamist regime is counterposed against a modern population of educated, secular urbanites. However, Iran has for many centuries been a nation forged from a diverse mix of influences, most of them non-sectarian and cosmopolitan. In Iran Without Borders, the acclaimed cultural critic and scholar of Iranian history Hamid Dabashi traces the evolution of this worldly culture from the eighteenth century to the present day, journeying through social and intellectual movements, and the lives of writers, artists and public intellectuals who articulated the idea of Iran on a transnational public sphere. Many left their homeland--either physically or emotionally--and imagined it from places as far-flung as Istanbul, Cairo, Calcutta, Paris, or New York, but together they forged a nation as worldly as it is multifarious"-- Provided by publisher.

""No ruling regime," writes Hamid Dabashi, "could ever have a total claim over the idea of Iran as a nation, a people." For decades, the narrative about Iran has been dominated by a false binary, in which the traditional ruling Islamist regime is counterposed against a modern population of educated, secular urbanites. However, Iran has for many centuries been a nation forged from a diverse mix of influences, most of them non-sectarian and cosmopolitan. In Iran Without Borders, the acclaimed cultural critic and scholar of Iranian history Hamid Dabashi traces the evolution of this worldly culture from the eighteenth century to the present day, journeying through social and intellectual movements, and the lives of writers, artists and public intellectuals who articulated the idea of Iran on a transnational public sphere. Many left their homeland--either physically or emotionally--and imagined it from places as far-flung as Istanbul, Cairo, Calcutta, Paris, or New York, but together they forged a nation as worldly as it is multifarious"-- Provided by publisher.

Introduction

Craving for India

Learning French and Russian

The young and the liberated

The sphere of earth

Sailing upon the waters round the globe

The world is my home

Where is homeland?

Geographical indeterminacy

Conclusion.

Iran > Civilization.

Iran > Intellectual life.