Author
Afshin Marashi
Bio: Afshin Marashi is an academic researcher from University of Kansas. The author has contributed to research in topics: Zoroastrianism & Cultural nationalism. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 12 citations.
Topics: Zoroastrianism, Cultural nationalism, Nationalism
Papers
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the cultural, political, and ideological implications of Rabindranath Tagore's visit to Iran for the emerging discourse of nationalism in interwar Iran.
Abstract: In April and May of 1932, Rabindranath Tagore traveled to Iran on an official visit. He had been invited to Iran as the official guest of Rezā Shah Pahlavi. Using an array of primary source material, this article examines the cultural, political, and ideological implications of this trip for the emerging discourse of nationalism in interwar Iran. The article argues that Tagore’s visit played an important part in promoting the new official nationalism of the Pahlavi state. The emerging interwar ideology of “Pahlavi nationalism” sought to dissociate Iran from the Abrahamic-Islamicate “civilizational ethos” that was now understood to have long dominated Iranian culture, and instead sought to associate Iranian nationalism’s claim of cultural authenticity to a newly emerging notion of “Indo-Iranian civilization” rooted in the pre-Islamic culture of Zoroastrianism and Aryanism. Tagore’s visit to Iran was seen as an opportunity for his Iranian hosts to present him to the Iranian public as a living personification of this newly conceived idea of national authenticity. The public ceremonies and pronouncements that accompanied Tagore during the four-week trip all reinforced this basic message. The paper therefore argues that the Tagore visit to Iran was closely tied to the Pahlavi state’s policy of cultural nationalism.
12 citations
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TL;DR: The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe as discussed by the authors is a history of racist and nationalist ideas in Europe, with a focus on the Aryan race.
Abstract: (1975). The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 80-80.
87 citations
73 citations
TL;DR: By conceiving two emergent nation-states as a single region linked by conjoining roads, shared technologies and circulating researchers, the authors traces the emergence of a common "intellectual in".
Abstract: By conceiving two emergent nation-states as a single region linked by conjoining roads, shared technologies and circulating researchers, this essay traces the emergence of a common “intellectual in
23 citations
TL;DR: The work of the third generation of comparative sociologists on civilizational analysis and multiple modernities can redeem the promise of comparative sociology by rectifying the neglect of developmental patterns in other civilizations and recovering the fundamental relevance of the periphery as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Surveying three generations of comparative sociologists, separated by abrupt discontinuities, the study reaches the conclusion that the original promise of comparative sociology set in motion a century ago remains largely unfulfilled. It will then be argued that the work of the third generation of comparative sociologists on civilizational analysis and multiple modernities can redeem the promise of comparative sociology by rectifying the neglect of developmental patterns in other civilizations and recovering the fundamental relevance of the periphery. The third generation is thus seeking to undo the erasure of the historical experience of a very sizeable portion of humankind from the foundation of social theory. This argument is illustrated by selective reference to the concept of the nation-state, and comparisons of civilizational processes and developmental patterns that stem from different religions and traditions and generate varieties of nationalism, alternative modernities and patterns of secularization.
17 citations