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Today, almost a generation has passed since the Iran-Iraq war and
the memory of it is set to diminish with each passing generation.
The following questions emerge. Can we say that the gradual
disappearance of war's memory means that, increasingly, Iranians
will see the Iran-Iraq war solely as an historical event? How can
we defend or reject this idea? Today, with which elements and
values should we look at the Iran-Iraq war memorials and
ceremonies? To what extent will war museums and materials culture
be influenced by these new values? In the period during and
immediately after the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), national bereavement
and commemoration of martyrs was neither apparent in common state
policy nor a social need. Even at the turn of the 21st century,
anyone walking through Iranian cities, many of which had been the
main scene of the bloody massacre and direct targets of the Iraqi
Republican Guard, will have found traces of the terrible, almost
unimaginable, human losses. However, today's Iranians can see
modern war memorials and monuments in many parts of the urban and
rural landscape. Yet, at the same time, the changing landscape has
separated Iranians from such remnants of the violence. It can be
argued that many people, in their wish to look forward to a more
hopeful future, do not wish to be reminded of this period in
Iranian history. This book was originally published as a special
issue of Visual Anthropology.
Today, almost a generation has passed since the Iran Iraq war
and the memory of it is set to diminish with each passing
generation. The following questions emerge. Can we say that the
gradual disappearance of war s memory means that, increasingly,
Iranians will see the Iran Iraq war solely as an historical event?
How can we defend or reject this idea? Today, with which elements
and values should we look at the Iran Iraq war memorials and
ceremonies? To what extent will war museums and materials culture
be influenced by these new values?
In the period during and immediately after the Iran Iraq war
(1980-88), national bereavement and commemoration of martyrs was
neither apparent in common state policy nor a social need. Even at
the turn of the 21st century, anyone walking through Iranian
cities, many of which had been the main scene of the bloody
massacre and direct targets of the Iraqi Republican Guard, will
have found traces of the terrible, almost unimaginable, human
losses.
However, today s Iranians can see modern war memorials and
monuments in many parts of the urban and rural landscape. Yet, at
the same time, the changing landscape has separated Iranians from
such remnants of the violence. It can be argued that many people,
in their wish to look forward to a more hopeful future, do not wish
to be reminded of this period in Iranian history.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Visual
Anthropology."
The importance and ramifications of saints, sainthood and
pilgrimage in contemporary Iran and neighbouring countries are
great, yet the academic conceptualizations of them and their
entailments are sorely lacking. This book places the saints and
their pilgrims in sharper focus, and offers important correctives
to all-too-common Western misunderstandings, the foremost of which
is the erroneous portrayal of Islam as primarily a body of legal
doctrine and corresponding practice, and the associated principle
that we can 'know' Islam if we 'know' Islamic law. In an effort to
challenge such a limited, and limiting, perspective, this volume
suggests that both anthropology, insofar as it can focus on
experience and practice, and history, insofar as it can encompass
more than an institutional/political 'names and dates' discourse,
can reveal something of the dynamism of the faith, as more than the
sum of its laws. The approaches demonstrated in this book on Shiite
Pilgrimage offer windows into the beliefs and lives of 'ordinary'
people, past and present, and thereby bring forth agendas akin to
those of 'subaltern studies'. Finally, the memorializing documented
in these chapters provides evidence, past and present, of
widespread desires for a more concrete, even immanent, relationship
that is direct, unmediated and, at least partly, involves forms of
intercession - even though such desires for immanence in the
Islamic world have previously been considered as limited to
devotees of the Sufi saints or the Shi'i Imams or their progeny.
While the cinema of post-revolutionary Iran is internationally
acknowledged, the world outside Iran has been ignorant of the
Iranian war films that are the subject of this pioneering book.
Over 200 Iranian feature films concentrating primarily on fighting
and military operations have appeared since the 1980s and the
beginning of the war between Iran and Iraq. This book presents a
detailed exploration of the 'Sacred Defence cinema' established by
Seyed Morteza Avini, a cinema that directly connects this war to
the faith and religious belief of volunteer guardians of the
revolution. These films remain the primary vehicles of the Islamic
state in Iran for the preservation and memorization of the theme of
martyrdom. As the distinguished film scholar, Hamid Dabashi writes
in his Foreword to the book: 'If national cinemas are predicated on
national traumas, in the volume that Pedram Khosronejad has put
together we are at the heart of Iranian cinema.' "The eight-year
Iran-Iraq war near the end of the 20th century renewed the horrors
of the First World War near the start of the century - causing
millions of casualties and untold devastation on both sides. It
also resulted in a vigorous and dynamic cinematic output in Iran,
producing some of the most ardent Islamist political movies,
Shii-inflected spiritual films, and original theorization of what
constitutes an 'Islamic cinema'. Khosronejad has managed to amass
an astute and fascinating anthology - the first in English - that
brings together an international roster of scholars to deal with
the complexities and varieties of war fiction films, documentaries,
television series and auteur directors." Prof. Hamid Naficy
Northwestern University
This impressive work of scholarship brings together anthropology,
religion, popular culture, and history in its focus on Bakhtiari
lion tombstones that have remained largely unknown and hence little
studied. Although lions have long figured in Iranian history, art
and myth as symbols of rulership, power, religious leadership or as
steadfast guardians, art historians have tended to concentrate
their attentions on court traditions and the role of lions in
popular culture, especially in religion, has remained little
considered until this book. Funerary stone lions are to be found
throughout western Iran, but are concentrated in the summer and
winter pasture areas of the Bakhtiari, today's provinces of Chahar
Mahal and Bakhtiari, west of Isfahan, and Khuzistan. This highly
illustrated colour volume draws on meticulous fieldwork and
includes over three hundred photographs, drawings, charts and maps.
The recording of this rare sculptural heritage, dating from the
16th century to the early 20th century, has become ever more
pressing as some tombstones have been taken from their original
settings and re-erected in parks, others damaged by the elements
and some recently broken up to be used in road repairs. 'Pedram
Khosronejad's Lion Tombstones among Bakhtiari Pastoral Nomads in
South West Iran is to be greatly welcomed... [It is ]based on
extensive fieldwork and represents something of a rescue
project....This volume, however, goes further in raising three
inter-related issues: why have these important artifacts been
neglected even by specialists; how do they relate to a richer
understanding of Iranian art and culture; and how does vernacular
art relate to the accepted traditions of Iranian art?.... This
volume will prove to be important in bringing the lion tombstones
to a larger public attention.' G. R. Garthwaite, Dartmouth College,
Hanover, NH Jane and Raphael Bernstein Professor in Asian Studies,
Emeritus & Professor of History, Emeritus
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