Irrationalities in Islam and media in nineteenth-century Iran : faces of modernity / Arash Ghajarjazi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ghajarjazi, Arash, author.

Series:

Iranian studies series (Amsterdam, Netherlands) ; volume 29.

Iranian studies series ; volume 29

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mass media--Iran--History--19th century.

Mass media.

Mass media--Religious aspects--Islam--History--19th century.

Islam--Iran--History--19th century.

Islam.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (175 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Leiden : Leiden University Press, 2022.

Summary:

This book deals for the first time with the cultural history of media in nineteenth-century Iran, a history that deals with how modern techniques of representation and communication were received in the Iranian Shi'a society. This reception history is examined in religious photography, military reforms, Persian passion plays, Shi'a medicine, and the burgeoning telegraphic culture. The problematic relationship between Shi'a Islam and 19th-century media is conceptualised and contextualised, especially through the lens of the first Polytechnique college (Dar al-Fonun, 1851) in Iran. This college is conceptualised as a media laboratory, where the technological sphere in Iran was fundamentally transforming. It is also contextualised in the age of reform, a period in which the Middle East was undergoing widespread social, political, and military changes. Islamic (art) history, Iranian Studies, and cultural analysis form an interdisciplinary analytic framework to create new knowledge about the historical complexity of nineteenth-century Iran.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Transliteration table

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 Resurrectional mediations: Shiʿa eschatology and photography

CHAPTER 2 Mourning mediations: taʿziye performances and military sonic techniques

CHAPTER 3 Therapeutic mediations: Shiʿa medical imagination and cholera

CHAPTER 4 Spiritual mediations: Shiʿa demonology and telegraphy

EPILOGUE The semiotics of Shiʿa absurdism

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 06 Dec 2022).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9789400604438

9400604432

OCLC:

1346214929