![]() ![]() Reformers inside and outside of the Qajar monarchy sought solutions to Iranian weakness and decline by looking west, as it were, to the seemingly miraculous achievements of the Europeans in numerous realms of knowledge (the gaze was turned east as well, to India and especially Japan, but that is another story for another time). What happens when the impetus for change is also the source of desired knowledge? By the 19th century, Europe, and in particular Russia and England, posed existential threats to the continued existence of Iran as an independent, sovereign country. ![]() Monica Ringer’s concept of “the dilemma of modernity” This week Secor helps us to raise the curtain on many if not most of the major themes and players that we’ll come across over the course of the semester, including Al-e Ahmad, Shariati, Motahhari, and of course the author of The Little Black Fish, Behrangi. We started the course with an abridged, almost fantastical history of the 1979 Revolution ( Shah of Shahs), written in prose that regularly slipped into poetry. Please make sure you read the brief and melancholy story of “The Little Black Fish” in Laura Secor’s magnificent Children of Paradise. ![]()
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