Iran's “Self-Deprecating Modernity”: Toward Decolonizing Collective Self-Critique

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Mostafa Abedinifard
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Critical Practices ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Sociopolitical Context ◽  
Iranian History

Abstract Extant studies of Iranian nationalism accentuate the self-aggrandizing side of Iranian modernity, mainly achieved through, and informing, a process of otherizing certain non-Persians/Iranians, particularly the Arabs. I argue that equally important to understanding Iranian modernity is its lesser recognized, shameful and self-demeaning face, as manifested through a simultaneous 19th-century discourse, which I call “self-deprecating modernity.” This was an often self-ridiculing and shame-inducing, sometimes satirical, discourse featuring an emotion-driven and self-Orientalizing framework that developed out of many mid-nineteenth-century Iranian modernists’ obsessions with Europe's gaze; with self-surveillance; and with the perceived humiliation of Iranians through the ridiculing laughter of Other (especially European) nations at Iran's and Iranians’ expense. To explore this discourse, I re-examine the works of three pre-constitutionalist thinkers and writers within the broader sociopolitical context of late Qajar Iran, surveying their perspectives on shame, embarrassment, and ridiculing laughter, and showing how they were significantly informed by, while also helping to form, self-deprecating modernity. Given the strong, self-colonizing presumptions of this discourse, I conclude the article with a stress on the importance of re-exploring collective self-critical practices in modern Iranian history, culture, and literature with an eye toward decolonizing self-criticism.

scholarly journals Successful Against All Odds? – Margaret Fuller: The Self-Made Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Ad Americam ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 143-154
Author(s):  
Jolanta Szymkowska-Bartyzel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
The Self ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Margaret Fuller ◽  
Cultural Model ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
The Times ◽  
Work And Life

Margaret Fuller was an American philosopher, writer, journalist and one of the first gender theorists. The article examines Fuller’s work and life in the context of 19th century American culture and social determinants influencing women’s lives. From a very early age, Fuller perceived her role in society different from the role designed for her as a biological girl by the cultural model of the times she lived in. The article focuses on Fuller’s achievements in the context of the self-made man/woman concept.

scholarly journals The Affective Geography of Paris in the 19th Century Romanian Novel: Between Admiration and Aversion

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-147
Author(s):  
David Morariu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Big Data ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Data Interpretation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Distant Reading ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The City

Based on “The Emotions of London”, a research project initiated at the Stanford Literary Lab, my article focuses on two relevant issues. First of all, I aim to demonstrate, as the “geography of emotions” experiment has already proved, that distant reading approaches and big data interpretation do not necessarily have to replace traditional methods of analysis. In other words, by using a corpus of 157 texts, I intend to outline the affective image of Paris as presented in the nineteenth century Romanian novel. Secondly, the aspect that makes my article different from “The Emotions of London” is that my purpose does not lie in analysing emotions associated with certain place-names in Paris, but with the overall image of the city, because Paris is an “abstract”, rather than a “concrete”, presence in the Romanian novel of this period. Another hypothesis that I will address is the interpretation of the emotions towards Paris, taking into account the two tendencies characteristic for the Romanian culture of the nineteenth century, namely the self-colonial tendency and the anti-colonial one.

THE IDEA OF «COMMUNITY» IN THE GOVERNMENT CONCEPTS OF GALICIA OF THE XIX – BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURY

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-21
Author(s):  
Liubomyr Ilyn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Legal Principle ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
The 19Th Century

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to analyze and systematize the views of social and political thinkers of Galicia in the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. on the right and manner of organizing a nation-state as a cathedral. Method. The methodology includes a set of general scientific, special legal, special historical and philosophical methods of scientific knowledge, as well as the principles of objectivity, historicism, systematic and comprehensive. The problem-chronological approach made it possible to identify the main stages of the evolution of the content of the idea of catholicity in Galicia's legal thought of the 19th century. Results. It is established that the idea of catholicity, which was borrowed from church terminology, during the nineteenth century. acquired clear legal and philosophical features that turned it into an effective principle of achieving state unity and integrity. For the Ukrainian statesmen of the 19th century. the idea of catholicity became fundamental in view of the separation of Ukrainians between the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. The idea of unity of Ukrainians of Galicia and the Dnieper region, formulated for the first time by the members of the Russian Trinity, underwent a long evolution and received theoretical reflection in the work of Bachynsky's «Ukraine irredenta». It is established that catholicity should be understood as a legal principle, according to which decisions are made in dialogue, by consensus, and thus able to satisfy the absolute majority of citizens of the state. For Galician Ukrainians, the principle of unity in the nineteenth century. implemented through the prism of «state» and «international» approaches. Scientific novelty. The main stages of formation and development of the idea of catholicity in the views of social and political figures of Halychyna of the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries are highlighted in the work. and highlighting the distinctive features of «national statehood» that they promoted and understood as possible in the process of unification of Ukrainian lands into one state. Practical significance. The results of the study can be used in further historical and legal studies, preparation of special courses.

Remembering the Past in Nineteenth-Century Scotland

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Prevailing View ◽  
The Way

At a time when the Union between Scotland and England is once again under the spotlight, Remembering the Past in Nineteenth-Century Scotland examines the way in which Scotland’s national heroes were once remembered as champions of both Scottish and British patriotism. Whereas 19th-century Scotland is popularly depicted as a mire of sentimental Jacobitism and kow-towing unionism, this book shows how Scotland’s national heroes were once the embodiment of a consistent, expressive and robust view of Scottish nationality. Whether celebrating the legacy of William Wallace and Robert Bruce, the reformer John Knox, the Covenanters, 19th-century Scots rooted their national heroes in a Presbyterian and unionist view of Scotland’s past. Examined through the prism of commemoration, this book uncovers collective memories of Scotland’s past entirely opposed to 21st-century assumptions of medieval proto-nationalism and Calvinist misery. Detailed studies of 19th-century commemoration of Scotland’s national heroes Uncovers an all but forgotten interpretation of these ‘great Scots’ Shines a new light on the mindset of nineteenth-century Scottish national identity as being comfortably Scottish and British Overturns the prevailing view of Victorian Scottishness as parochial, sentimental tartanry

Meïr Goldschmidt and the main currents in 19th-century Judaism

2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Ober
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Jewish Heritage ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Phenomenal Knowledge

Although the noted nineteenth-century Danish-Jewish writer Meïr Goldschmidt (1819–1887) made his entry into literature with a novel on Jewish themes, his later novels treated non-Jewish subjects, and his Jewish heritage appeared progressively to recede into the background of his public image. Literary historians have paid little attention to his complex perception of his own Jewishness and have made no effort to discover the immense significance he himself felt that Judaism had for his life and for his literary works. Moreover, no previous study has comprehensively treated Goldschmidt’s far-reaching network of interrelationships with an astonishing number of other major Jewish cultural figures of nineteenth-century Europe. During his restless travels crisscrossing Europe, which were facilitated by his phenomenal knowledge of the major European languages, he habitually sought out and associated with the leading Jewish figures in literature, the arts, journalism, and religion, but this fact and the resulting mutually influential connections he formed have been overlooked and ignored. This is the first focused and documented study of the Jewish aspect of Goldschmidt’s life, so vitally important to Goldschmidt himself and so indispensable to a complete understanding of his place in Danish and in world literatures.

Women and Agency in Bankim’s Rajmohan’s Wife and Tagore’s The Home and The World

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manju Dhariwal ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
English Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Status Of Women

Written almost half a century apart, Rajmohan’s Wife (1864) and The Home and the World (1916) can be read as women centric texts written in colonial India. The plot of both the texts is set in Bengal, the cultural and political centre of colonial India. Rajmohan’s Wife, arguably the first Indian English novel, is one of the first novels to realistically represent ‘Woman’ in the nineteenth century. Set in a newly emerging society of India, it provides an insight into the status of women, their susceptibility and dependence on men. The Home and the World, written at the height of Swadeshi movement in Bengal, presents its woman protagonist in a much progressive space. The paper closely examines these two texts and argues that women enact their agency in relational spaces which leads to the process of their ‘becoming’. The paper analyses this journey of the progress of the self, which starts with Matangini and culminates in Bimala. The paper concludes that women’s journey to emancipation is symbolic of the journey of the nation to independence.

The Well-Mannered Auditor

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Deaville
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
The Self ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Drawing Room ◽  
The Way

The chapter explores the way English-language etiquette books from the nineteenth century prescribe accepted behavior for upwardly mobile members of the bourgeoisie. This advice extended to social events known today as “salons” that were conducted in the domestic drawing room or parlor, where guests would perform musical selections for the enjoyment of other guests. The audience for such informal music making was expected to listen attentively, in keeping with the (self-) disciplining of the bourgeois body that such regulations represented in the nineteenth century. Yet even as the modern world became noisier and aurally more confusing, so, too, did contemporary social events, which led authors to become stricter in their disciplining of the audience at these drawing room performances. Nevertheless, hosts and guests could not avoid the growing “crisis of attention” pervading this mode of entertainment, which would lead to the modern habit of inattentive listening.

Ten voordeele van …

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 234-258
Author(s):  
Marita Mathijsen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Flood Disasters ◽  
Dutch History

Abstract In favor of … Charity publications in the nineteenth century In Dutch history, charity publications were almost entirely a 19th century phenomenon. In this article I provide an overview of this phenomenon. The first publication that I have been able to trace is from 1784, the most recent one from 1930. However there are some predecessors of charity publications. The few studies that have been published about charity literature emphasize their national message. Occasions for charity publications were many and varied. Even so, flood disasters prevail. The most varied genres could be employed for the purpose: theater plays, poetry, sermons, essays, etc. However, poems are in the majority, and it is they in the first place that become the object of criticism. From mid-century onward critical comments become ever fiercer, in particular concerning their quantity and their countless platitudes. What makes the phenomenon typically nineteenth century is the shared mentality behind it. To help out in the case of disasters or poverty was not yet a public matter but rested with privately undertaken initiatives.

scholarly journals Women and Orientalism: 19th century Representations of the Harem by European female travellers and Ottoman women

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Thisaranie Herath
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
Private Spaces ◽  
The Way

The inaccessibility of the Ottoman harems to European males helped perpetuate the image of the harem as purely sexual in nature and contributed to imperialistic discourse that positioned the East as inferior to the West. It was only with the emergence of female travellers and artists that Europe was afforded a brief glimpse into the source of their fantasies; however, whether these accounts catered to or challenged the normative imperialist discourse of the day remains controversial. Emerging scholarship also highlights the way in which harem women themselves were able to control the depiction of their private spaces to suit their own needs, serving to highlight how nineteenth century depictions of the harem were a series of cross-cultural exchanges and negotiations between male Orientalists, female European travellers, and shrewd Ottoman women. 

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