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Browsing by Subject "Iran"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Being Written While Writing: Crafting Selves in the Persian Blogosphere
    (2018-05) Shiva, Amirpouyan
    This dissertation examines how people change in the process of creating through the prism of a particular creative site of material production—the Persian blogosphere. In Iran, blogging is a popular means for producing self-centering narratives—i.e., written accounts centering around one’s lived experience—, making Persian one of the top 10 blogging languages. As it deploys ethnographic research to explore blogging, a medium enabled by the coming together of technology, language, and people, this project questions the received ideas of what media do. The findings of this research challenge conventional ideas of media that center on symbolic representation instead of material creation. This ethnography explores the intervening processes, material techniques, unintentional creations, and creative accidents that go into the making of blogposts and bloggers’ inner selves. This study also shows that local traditions and understandings inform writing practices in the Persian blogosphere. As it uncovers the processes through which people gain new understandings of the world, this ethnography examines not only the uniquely Iranian qualities or uses of the Internet, but also how singularities in this specific field of cultural forces led to the birth of these qualities and functions. This research, moreover, explores how writing blogs helps Iranian become autonomous subjects, which in turn changes the dynamics of power at a micro level. This project is not, however, either another anthropocentric account of self-fashioning of an autonomous subject acting as the sole source of its own authority, nor a representational study of the subject’s narrative. As it takes its scrutiny beyond the realm of meaning, narratives, and stories, where the already-constituted individual has an ontological privilege, this research shows that the seemingly autonomous selves, in their self-fashioning projects, depend upon the materiality of the technology and that of written words. Although ultimately about identities crafted online, this ethnography therefore underlines an understanding of fashioning selves that concerns itself with the negotiation of alterities rather than the formation of identities. In its contributions to the anthropology of the self, media, technology, and writing, this research shows that identities crafted through media are made possible because of those alterities.
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    Burning Visions: The Iranian New Wave and the Politics of the Image, 1962-1979
    (2015-09) Saljoughi, Sara
    This dissertation examines Iranian experimental and art cinema from 1962 through to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. By focusing on this period, I argue that it is necessary to re-evaluate the Iranian New Wave as a counter-cinema movement that sought to interrogate notions of collectivity. One of the New Wave’s primary strategies for re-thinking collectivity, I argue, was the remediation of older Iranian art forms such as poetry, miniature painting, and theater, as well as the then novel medium of television. Through an engagement with these diverse forms, the New Wave established itself as an alternative national project in opposition to the cinema of imperialism (Hollywood), the domestic commercial cinema known as film farsi, and the modernizing nationalism of the Pahlavi regime. My analysis begins with the feminist poetics of The House is Black (1962), a film that I argue projected a new form of social relations. This form is elaborated throughout this seventeen-year period by radical filmmakers who put forward a new cinema using strategies of estrangement in combination with archaic Iranian forms. The dissertation thus theorizes the Iranian New Wave as a missing chapter of the global movement of counter-cinema occurring throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In both the final chapter and the conclusion of the dissertation, I interrogate the widespread perception of an absolute rupture dividing the Iranian New Wave from the better-known post-revolutionary Iranian art cinema, characterized by the works of Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi. I demonstrate that many of the formal traits attributed to cinema in the post-revolutionary era can be traced further back and linked to the New Wave’s pre-occupation with collectivity and the production of art. In sum, the dissertation is both the first study focused exclusively on theorizing the Iranian New Wave, as well as a new historiography that calls for re-reading the sources and futures of Iranian art cinema.
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    Colonies, Clients, and Rogues: Power and the Production of Order in International Politics
    (2016-07) Asaadi, Robert
    This dissertation problematizes the foreign policy paradigm in which certain states are labeled as 'rogue' or 'outlier' regimes and as a consequence subjected to forms of exclusion and discipline. My analysis focuses on the case of Iran and its relations with the US in the post-Cold War era. I argue through this case study that an overlooked aspect of the rogue state concept and hegemon-rogue relations pertains less to how rogue states behave, which has been the focus of the existing literature on this subject, and more to what they mean to those who name them as such. I trace the historical emergence of the term as well as its performative contradictions in an effort to denaturalize the rogue concept and uncover the strategic interests involved in its deployment. The rogue figure stands simultaneously as a radical threat, subject to isolation and targeting, and at the same time exists as an objective manifestation of the 'wrong' values / 'wrong' ways of being, which functions to reaffirm the normative order and legitimacy of the hegemon. The naming of rogues, I argue, functions as an exclusionary boundary and reaffirms the neo-imperialist desire to define the encounter with others.
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    Disaster as an opportunity for transformative change in developing countries: Post-earthquake transitional settlements in southeastern Iran, based on the 2003 Bam earthquake reassessment
    (2014-12) Forouzandeh, Peyvand
    This thesis examines the design of post-earthquake transitional settlements in the hot and arid climate of central and southeastern Iran. It is a study of the past, an analysis of the present, and an imagination of a possible future for cities similar to Bam. It observes the spatial, material, cultural, and economic forces that shape the environment, viewing the complex socio-political forces that pressurize issues of post-disaster construction. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the interpretation of "better" for building back in relatively isolated communities within historical and cultural landscapes. It is also searching for ways that local governments can energize the potential for building self-sufficient communities and re-envisioning approaches to establish sustainable cities after disasters.
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    Impact of traffic zones on mobility behavior in Tehran, Iran
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2017) Salarvandian, Fatemeh; Dijst, Martin; Helbich, Marco
    The use of private cars has increased rapidly in developing countries, causing congestion and pollution in cities. In Iran, measures have been taken to manage the extensive automobile use in Tehran. Two downtown traffic zones were introduced: The Restricted Traffic Zone (RTZ) based on pass permission and the Odd-Even Zone (OEZ) based on license-plate number. This article investigates how and to what extent traffic zoning influences mobility behavior in Tehran. Two neighborhoods within these zones and one elsewhere were selected to compare the impact of traffic zoning on mode choice and travel time by means of regression analyses. The results show that zoning has decreased driving in both neighborhoods; although compared to the RTZ, the OEZ has had a limited impact. While car use has diminished in both neighborhoods compared to the area without restrictions, travel time has increased in the traffic zones. An explanation might be the low quality of the infrastructure for alternative modes (e.g., cycling). Tehran's spatial functional specialization and the monocentric urban structure induce more car trips and longer travel times, regardless of traffic restrictions. Policymakers are advised to integrate restrictions on automobile use with improvements in public transport to enhance the impact of traffic zones.
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    Iran - Sustainable horticulture crop production
    (2010-02-02) Canales, Renee
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    The Lens Inverts the Image: How Cultural Differences beyond Language Affect Dialog between the US and Iran
    (2012-05-30) DeKay, Cynthia
    Communication through non-semantic and non-verbal means varies across cultures as much as vocabulary and grammar. Cultural misunderstanding has fueled conflict between the US and Iran in the recent past – conflict that was exacerbated by a political ideology that placed no importance on culture as a factor in international relations. At present, political relations between the US and Iran are hostile and there is talk of war. During such a critical period, effective communication between the two nations is essential. While both countries have excellent translators, language is only the beginning of cross-cultural communication. In this study I explore some of the most problematic differences in non-verbal and non-semantic communication between the US and Iran and propose action needed to overcome them.